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AMERICAN INDIAN LIFE 



AMERICAN INDIAN LIFE 



BY SEVERAL OF 
ITS STUDENTS 

EDITED BY ELSIE CLEWS PARSONS 
ILLUSTRATED BY C. GRANT LAFARGE 




NEW YORK 



B. W. HUEBSCH, INC. 



M CM XXII 



OOPYBIGHT, 1 922, BY B.W. HUEBSCH, INC. 



PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 



AUG 15 '22 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 



PAGE 

Preface i 

Introduction 5 

By A. L. Kroeber, Professor of Anthropology, University of California , 

PLAINS TRIBES: 

Takes-the-pipe, a Crow Warrior 17 

By Robert H. Lowie, Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of 
California 

A Crow Woman's Tale 35 

By Robert H. Lowie, Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of 
California 

A Trial of Shamans 4 1 

By Robert H. Lowie, Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of 
California 

Smoking-star, a Blackfoot Shaman 45 

By Clark Wissler, Curator of Anthropology, American Museum of Natural 
History 

TRIBES OF THE MIDDLE WEST: 

Little-wolf Joins the Medicine Lodge 63 

By Alanson Skinner, Assistant Curator, Public Museum, Milwaukee 

Thunder-cloud, a Winnebago Shaman, Relates and Prays .... 75 
By Paul Radin, Late of the Department of Anthropology, University of 
California 

How Meskwaki Children Should Be Brought Up 81 

By Truman Michelson, Ethnologist, Bureau of American Ethnology, Smith- 
sonian Institution 

EASTERN TRIBES: 

In Montagnais Country 87 

By Frank G. Speck, Professor of Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania 

Hanging-flower, the Iroquois 99 

By Alexander A. Goldenweiser, Lecturer in Anthropology, New School of 
Social Research 



Table of Contents 

PAGE 

The Thunder Power of Rumbling-wings 107 

By M. R. Harrington, Ethnologist, Museum of the American Indian, Heye 
Foundation 

Tokulki of Tulsa .127 

By John R. Swanton, Ethnologist, Bureau of American Ethnology, Smith- 
sonian Institution 

TRIBES OF THE SOUTH-WEST: 

Slender-maiden of the Apache 147 

By P. E. Goddard, Curator of Ethnology, American Museum of Natural 
History 

When John the Jeweler was Sick 153 

By A. M. Stephen, Sometime Resident Among the Hopi and Navaho 

Waiyautitsa of Zuni, New Mexico 157 

By Elsie Clews Parsons, Member of the Hopi Tribe 

Zuni Pictures 175 

By Stewart Culin, Curator of Anthropology , Brooklyn Institute Museum 

Kavasupai Days 179 

By Leslie Spier of the Department of Sociology, University of Washington 

Earth-tongue, a Mohave 189 

By A. L. Kroeber, Professor of Anthropology, University of California 

MEXICAN TRIBES: 

The Chief Singer of the Tepecano . 203 

By J. Alden Mason, Assistant Curator in Anthropology, Field Museum of 
Natural History 

The Understudy of Tezcatlipoca 237 

By Herbert Spinden, Lecturer in Anthropology, Harvard University 

How Holon Chan Became the True Man of His People 251 

By Sylvanus G. Morley, Associate, Carnegie Institution of IV ashington 

The Toltec Architect of Chichen Itza 265 

By Alfred M. Tozzer, Professor of Anthropology, Harvard University, and 
Curator Middle American Archaeology, Peabody Museum 

PACIFIC COAST TRIBES: 

Wixi of the Shellmound People 2 73 

By N. C. Nelson, Associate Curator of North American Archeology, 
American Museum of Natural History 

All Is Trouble Along the Klamath 2 %9 

By T. T. Waterman, Ethnologist, Museum of the American Indian, Heye 
Foundation 



Table of Contents 

PAGE 

Sayach'apis, a Mootka Trader 297 

By Edward Sapir, Head of Division of Anthropology, Geological Survey of 
Canada 

NORTHERN ATHABASCAN TRIBES: 

WlNDIGO, A CHIPEWYAN STORY 325 

By Robert H. Lowie, Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of 
California 

Cries-for-salmon, a Ten'a Woman 337 

By T. B. Reed and Elsie Clews Parsons. Mr. Reed is an Alaskan (Ten'a) 
student in Hampton Institute 

ESKIMO: 

An Eskimo Winter' 363 

By Franz Boas, Professor of Anthropology, Columbia University 

Appendix ^8i 

Notes on the Various Tribes 

Illustrator's Notes 



Preface 



"She always says she will come, and sometimes she comes and some- 
times she doesn't come. I w,as so surprised when I first came out 
here to find that Indians were like that," the wife of the Presby- 
terian Missionary in an Indian town in New Mexico was speaking, 
as you readily infer, on her servant question. 

"Where did you get your impressions of Indians before you came 
here?" 

"From Fenimore Cooper. I used to take his books out, one right 
after the other from the library at New Canaan, Connecticut, where 
I grew up." 

At that time, during the youth of this New Englander past middle 
age, few anthropological monographs on Indian tribes had been 
written, but it is doubtful if such publications are to be found in 
New England village libraries even to-day, and it is more than doubt- 
ful that if they were in the libraries anybody would read them; 
anthropologists themselves have been known not to read them. Be- 
tween these forbidding monographs and the legends of Fenimore 
Cooper, what is there then to read for a girl who is going to spend 
her life among Indians or, in fact, for anyone who just wants to 
know more about Indians? 

From these considerations, among others, this book was conceived. 
The idea of writing about the life of the Indian for the General 
Reader is not novel, to be sure, to anthropologists. Appearances to 
the contrary, anthropologists have no wish to keep their science 
or any part of it esoteric. They are too well aware, for one thing, 
that facilities for the pursuit of anthropology are dependent more 
or less on popular interest, and that only too often tribal cultures 
have disappeared in America as elsewhere before people became 
interested enough in them to learn about them. 

Nevertheless, the cost of becoming popular may appear excessive 
—not only to the student who begrudges the time and energy that 
must be drawn from scientific work, but to the scientist who is asked 

i 



2 



American Indian Life 



to popularize his study in terms repugnant to his sense of truth 01 
propriety. Hitherto, American publishers appear to have proposed 
only to bring Fenimore Cooper up to date, merely to add to the 
over-abundant lore of the white man about the Indian. 

In this book the white man's traditions about Indians have been 
disregarded. That the writers have not read other traditions from 
their own culture into the culture they are describing is less certain. 
Try as we may, and it must be confessed that many of us do not try 
very hard, few, if any of us, succeed, in describing another culture, 
of ridding ourselves of our own cultural bias or habits of mind. 
Much of our anthropological work, to quote from a letter from 
Spinden, "is not so much definitive science as it is a cultural trait 
of ourselves." 

For one thing we fail to see the foreign culture as a whole, noting 
only the aspects which happen to interest us. Commonly, the in- 
teresting aspects are those which differ markedly from our own 
culture or those in which we see relations to the other foreign 
cultures we have studied. Hence our classified data give the im- 
pression that the native life is one unbroken round, let us say, of 
curing or weather-control ceremonials, of prophylaxis against bad 
luck, of hunting, or of war. The commonplaces of behavior 
are overlooked, the amount of "common sense" is underrated, and 
the proportion of knowledge to credulity is greatly underestimated. 
In other words the impression we give of the daily life of the people 
may be quite misleading, somewhat as if we described our own 
society in terms of Christmas and the Fourth of July, of beliefs 
about the new moon or ground hogs in February, of city streets in 
blizzards and after, of strikes and battleships. Unfortunately, the 
necessarily impressionistic character of the following tales, together 
with their brevity, renders them, too, subject to the foregoing criti- 
cism. Of this, Dr. Kroeber in the Introduction will have more to 
say, as well as of his impression of how far we have succeeded in 
presenting the psychological aspects of Indian culture. 

The problems presented by the culture, problems of historical 
reconstruction, Dr. Kroeber will also refer to, but discussion of 
the problems, of such subjects as culture areas, as the current phrase 
goes, as diffusion and acculturation, will not be presented in this 



Preface 



3 



book — it is a book of pictures. But if the reader wants to learn 
of how the problems are being followed up, he is directed to the 
bibliographical notes in the appendix. If the pictures remain pic- 
tures for him, well and good ; if they lead him to the problems, good 
and better. Anthropology is short on students. 

E. C. P. 



Introduction 



The old ethnology, like every science in its beginnings, was specu- 
lative. The new ethnology is inductive. Fifty or sixty years ago 
the attempt was first made to read the riddle of human origins and 
substantiate the answer by facts. One student after another — Spen- 
cer, Tylor, Morgan, and others — thought out a formula that seemed 
a reasonable explanation of how some activity of human civiliza- 
tion — institutional, religious, or inventive — began, developed, and 
reached its present condition; and then ransacked the accounts of 
travelers, missionaries, and residents among primitive tribes for 
each bit of evidence favorable to his theory. Thus the origin of 
marriage was plausibly traced back to the matriarchate and ulti- 
mate promiscuity 7 , of society to totemic clans, of the historic religions 
to a belief in souls and ghosts, of pottery to clay-lined basketry. 
Twenty-five years ago this theory fabrication was in full swing; 
and in many non-scientific quarters it still enjoys vogue and pres- 
tige. 

It is plain that the method of these evolutionary explanations 
was deductive. One started with an intuition, a rationalization, 
a guess, then looked for corroborative facts. Inevitably, all contrary 
facts tended to be ignored or explained away. What was more, the 
evidence being adduced solely with reference to whether it fitted 
or failed to fit into the theory under examination, it was torn from 
its natural relations of time, space, and association. This was very 
much as if a selection of statements, made by an individual on a 
given topic, were strung together, without reference to the circum- 
stances under which he uttered them and without the qualifications 
which he attached. By the use of this method of ignoring context, 
a. pretty good case might be made out to show that the Kaiser was 
really a pacificist republican at heart, Huxley a devout if not quite 
regular Christian, and Anthony Comstock a tolerant personality. 
Roosevelt could be portrayed as either a daring radical or as a 
hide-bound reactionary. Just such contrary interpretations did 

5 



American Indian Life 



emerge in the older ethnology. Totems, for instance, were held 
by one "authority" to have had their origin in magical rites con- 
cerned with food-supply, by another in a sort of nick-names, by a 
third in a primitive, mystic adumbration of the concept of society 
itself. 

Gradually it began to be recognized by students that this method 
might be necessary in the law-courts, where each party advowedly 
contends for his own interests, but that in science it led to exciting 
wrangling rather more than to progress toward impartial truth. 
And so a new ethnology modestly grew up which held for its motto : 
"All possible facts first, then such inferences as are warranted." 
"All facts" means not only all items but also these items in their 
natural order: the sequence in which they occur, their geographical 
relation, the degree to which they are associated. 

The anthropologist no longer compares marriage customs from 
all over the world as they come to hand. He realizes that marriage 
is likely to be a different rite as it is practiced respectively among 
peoples, with and without civil government, or among nations that 
have come under the influence of a world religion or remain in a 
status of tribal ceremony. The whole culture of the group must be 
more or less known before the history and meaning of an institution 
can become intelligible. Detached from its culture mass, a custom 
reveals as little of its functioning as an organ dissected out of the 
living body. 

Equally important for the interpretation of ethnic facts, are their 
geographical associations, their distribution. Is a custom or in- 
vention peculiar to one people or is it shared by many distinct peoples 
occupying a continuous area? Such a question may seem trivial. 
But the answer usually bears heavy significance. A unique institu- 
tion, or one found in various spots but in disconnected ones, is, other 
things equal, either of recent and independent origin in each locality, 
or it is a lingering survival of a custom that was once wide-spread. 
In short, it represents the beginning or end of a process of develop- 
ment. 

On the other hand, where we find an art or institution possessed in 
common by dozens or hundreds of tribes situated without any gaps 
between them on the map, it would be far-fetched to assume that each 
of them independently evolved this identical phenomenon. Why 



Introduction 



7 



presuppose a hundred parallel causes, each operating quite sepa- 
rately, when one will suffice, in view of the fact that human beings 
imitate each other's manners and borrow knowledge. We know that 
Christianity, gun-powder, the printing press, were originated but 
once. Even with history wiped out, we could infer as much, from 
their universality among the nations of Europe. 

Now this is just the situation as regards primitive peoples. Their 
history has been wiped out — it was never preserved by themselves 
or their neighbors. But knowledge of the geographical occurrence 
of a custom or invention, usually affords rather reliable insight into 
its history, sometimes into its origin. When the available informa- 
tion shows that Indian corn was grown by all the tribes from Chile 
and Brazil to Arizona and Quebec, it is evident that the history of 
native American agriculture is as much of a unit, essentially, as the 
history of Christianity or of fire-arms. It is a story of invention only 
at its outset, of diffusion and amplification through its greater length. 
When pottery is further discovered to possess almost exactly the same 
aboriginal distribution as maize, it becomes likely that this art, too, 
was devised but once; and likely, further, that it was invented at 
about the same time as maize culture and diffused with it. 

By evidence such as this, reenforced by the insight gained from the 
stratification of prehistoric objects preserved in caves and in the 
ground, native, American history is being reconstructed for some 
thousands of years past. The outline of this history runs about as 
follows. 

Eight, ten, or twelve thousand years ago, contemporary with the 
last phase of the Old Stone Age of Europe or the opening there of the 
New Stone Age, man, for the first time, entered the New World. 
He came from Asia across Behring Strait, a narrow gap with an 
island stepping-stone in the middle, and probably frozen over solidly 
in mid-winter. In race he was Mongoloid — not Chinese, Japanese, 
or Mongol proper, but proto-Mongoloid ; a straight-haired type, 
medium in complexion, jaw protrusion, nose-breadth, and inclining 
probably to round-headedness ; an early type, in short, from which 
the Chinese, the Malay, and the Indian grew out, like so many limbs 
from a tree. This proto-Mongoloid stock must have been well estab- 
lished in Asia long before. This is morally certain from the fact 
that the proto-Negroids and proto-Caucasians were living at least 



8 



American Indian Life 



ten to fifteen thousand years earlier, as attested by their discovered 
fossils, Grimaldi man and Cro-Magnon man. 

Well, somewhere about 8000 B. C, then, bands of proto-Mongo- 
lians began to filter in through the easy, northwest gate of America. 
Others pushed them behind ; before them, to the south, the country 
was ever more pleasantly tempting, and life easier. They multi- 
plied, streamed down the Pacific coast, wandered across to the Atlan- 
tic, entered the tropics in fertile Mexico, defiled through Panama, 
and slowly overran South America. Separate groups of entrants 
into Alaska may have brought distinct languages with them; or, if 
they all came with one mother-tongue, their migrations to diverse 
environments and long, long separations provided ample opportunity 
for differentiation into dialects, languages, and families. The his- 
tory of speech in the Old World covered by records, is but little more 
than three thousand years old, just a third of the ten thousand years 
with which we are dealing in America. Multiply by three the differ- 
ence between twentieth-century English and ancient Sanskrit or one 
of its modern representatives such as Bengali, and there is just about 
the degree of speech distinctness that exists between the American 
language families, such as Siouan and Algonkin, Aztec and Maya. 

So with the racial type. Fundamentally, one physical type 
stretches from Cape Horn to Alaska. Superficially, it is intricately 
variegated — here with round heads, there with long — with short 
faces or hooked noses or tall statures or wavy hair, in this or that 
group of tribes. In fact, it might seem that during ten thousand 
years the variety of climates and habitats might have succeeded in 
moulding the Indian into racial types of even greater distinctness 
than we encounter; until we remember that he found the two conti- 
nents empty, and was never subjected to mixtures with white or black 
or dwarf races, to mixtures such as were experienced by many of the 
peoples of the eastern hemisphere. 

What the first immigrants brought with them in culture was rudi- 
mentary. They kept dogs, but no other domesticated animal. They 
were not yet agricultural, and subsisted on what they wrested from 
nature. They knew something of weaving baskets and mats ; clothed 
and housed themselves; probably had harpoons and possibly bows; 
made fire with the drill ; cut with flint knives ; and believed in magic, 
spirits, and the perpetuity of the soul. 



Introduction 



9 



In and about southern Mexico they prospered the fastest, became 
most numerous, acquired some leisure, began to organize themselves 
socially, and developed cults of increasing elaborateness. They "in- 
vented" maize-agriculture and pottery; architecture in stone; irriga- 
tion; cloth weaving and cotton growing; the smelting and casting of 
copper, silver, and gold; a priesthood, calendar system, picture-writ- 
ing, pantheon of gods, and sacrifices; and accustomed themselves to 
town life. 

Gradually these amplifications of culture spread : slowly to the 
north, more rapidly and completely to the south, into the similar 
environment of Colombia and Peru. Not all of the civilization de- 
vised in Yucatan and Guatemala, was carried into South America. 
Writing and time reckoning, for instance, never squeezed through 
the Isthmus, and the Incas got along with traditions and records of 
strings. On the other hand the South Americans, also growing popu- 
lous and wealthy, added some culture elements of their own — bronze 
alloying, the hammock, the Pan's pipe, the balance scale, the surgical 
art of trephining the skull, the idea of a vast, compactly organized 
empire. 

In Peru then, and in Mexico, two nearly parallel centers of civil- 
ization grew up during thousands of years; sprung from the same 
foundation, differentiated in their superstructures, that of Mexico 
evidently the earlier, and, at the time of discovery, slightly more 
advanced. The Peruvian civilization, if we include with it those 
of western Colombia and Bolivia, rayed itself out through the whole 
southern continent, becoming feebler and more abbreviated with 
increasing distance from its focus. 

The South Mexican center similarly diffused its light through 
most of the northern continent. First its influences traveled to north- 
ern Mexico and the Southwest of the United States — Arizona and 
New Mexico, the seat of the Cliff-dwellers. There they took new 
root and then spread northward and eastward — altered, diluted, with 
much omitted. We may compare Mexico to a manufacturing dis- 
trict, where capital, inventiveness, resources and industry, flourish 
in mutual alliance; the Southwest to one of its outlets, a sort of dis- 
tributing point or jobbing center, which imports, both for its own 
consumption and for re-export; the articles of trade in this case 
being elements of civilization — inventions, knowledge, arts. 



10 



American Indian Life 



Throughout, it was a flow of things of the mind, not a drift of the 
bodies of men ; of culture, not of populations. And the radiation was 
ever northward, counter to the drift of the migrations which had 
begun thousands of years before, and which, in part, seem to have 
continued to crowd southward even during the period of northward 
spread of civilization. It was much as in Europe fifteen hundred 
years ago, when Goth and Vandal and Frank and Lombard pounded 
their way southward into the Roman empire, but the civilization of 
Rome — writing, learning, money, metallurgy, architecture, Chris- 
tianity, laws — streamed ever against the human pressure, until the 
farthest barbarians of the North Sea had become, in some measure, 
humanized. 

Thus the Southwest learned from Mexico to build in stone, to grow 
and weave cotton, to irrigate, to obey priests, and in some rude 
measure to organize the year into a calendar. None of these culture 
elements traveled farther. But the maize-beans-squash agriculture, 
pottery-making, the organization of cult societies, the division of the 
community into clans, reckoning descent from one parent only, some 
tendency toward town-life and the confederation of towns, all of 
which the Southwest had also acquired from Mexico, it passed on 
to its neighbors, notably to those of the Gulf States between Louisiana 
and Georgia. Here, these institutions were once more worked over 
and, in the main, reduced, and then some of them passed on north- 
ward, first to the Mound-builders of the Ohio valley, and then to the 
Iroquois of New York. From the Iroquois, in turn, some of their 
Algonkian neighbors and foes were just beginning to be ready to 
learn certain betterments, when the white man came and swept their 
cultures into memory. 

We have thus, a series of culture centers — Mexico, Southwest, 
Southeast, Iroquois, Atlantic Algonkins— of descending order of 
advancement, and subsequent to one another in time. They consti- 
tute a ladder of culture development, and, although undated, repre- 
sent a real sequence of history. 

One area was but haltingly and sparsely infiltrated from the South- 
west: the North Pacific Coast, centering in British Colombia. In 
this mild and rich environment a native culture grew up that, in the 
main, went its own way. It did not attain to the heights of Mexico, 
scarcely even equaled the Southwest. Pottery and agriculture 



Introduction 



ii 



failed to reach it. But out of its own resources* it developed, inde- 
pendently, a number of the arts and institutions which the remainder 
of North America drew from Mexico: clan organization and cult 
societies, for instance, the beginnings of a calendar and cloth weaving. 
And it added features, all its own: plank houses, totem poles, a re- 
markable style of decorative art, a society based on wealth. Here 
then we have a minor, but mainly independent culture center of the 
greatest interest. 

In a still smaller way, and without as great a freedom from south- 
ern influences, the tribes of the treeless Plains, in the heart of the 
continent, developed a little civilization of their "own. This was 
founded on what they had originally got from the Southwest and 
Southeast, was remodeled on the basis of an -almost exclusive de- 
pendence on the buffalo, and underwent a brief and stirring efflores- 
cence from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century, after the Plains 
tribes had got horses from the Spaniards. Here, then, grew up 
customs and appliances like the tepee, the travois, the camp-circle, 
warfare as a game with "coups" as counters. 

Similarly in the far north, along the shores of the Arctic, where 
the Eskimo spread themselves. Here, almost nothing penetrated 
from Mexico, but stern necessity forced a special inventiveness on 
the mechanical side and the way was near for the entrance of in- 
fluences from Asia, some few of which may have diffused beyond the 
Eskimo to the North Pacific Coast tribes. 

Such, then, are the outlines of the history of the native, American 
race and civilization. It is a long and complexly rich story, only 
partly unraveled. Those who wish it in greater fullness will find it 
in Wissler's The American Indian. Only enough has been sketched 
here to show that modern anthropology is an inductive science with 
a minimum of speculation ; that it aims at truly historical reconstruc- 
tions and is beginning to achieve them; and that it lies in the nature 
of its tasks to distinguish and analyze the several native culture-areas 
or local types of Indians before proceeding to conclusions based 
on combinations. 

Therefore it is, that many small items of ethnic knowledge acquire 
considerable importance. From the average man's point of view, 
it is of little moment that the Zuni farm and the Yurok and Nootka 
do not, or that the former refuse to marry their dead wives' sisters 



12 



American Indian Life 



and the latter insist on it. At best, such bits of facts have for the 
layman only the interest of idle curiosities, of antiquarian fragments. 
To the specialist, however, they become dependable means to a useful 
end, much as intimate knowledge of the position of arteries and 
nerves serves the surgeon. 

But, just as the exact understanding of anatomy which modern 
medicine enjoys, bulks to infinitely more than any one anatomist 
could ever have discovered, so with ethnology. No one mind could 
ever observe or assemble and digest all the cultural facts that are 
needed. Many workers are busy, have been systematically busy 
for two or three generations. Though they may, now and then, 
enliven their toil by a scientific quarrel over this or that set of facts 
or interpretation, they are inherently cooperating, laboring cumula- 
tively at a great joint enterprise. Sometimes, they divide their in- 
terests topically: one specializes on social customs, another on mate- 
rial arts, a third along lines of religion. But, in the main, the cul- 
tural context is so important that it has been found most productive 
for each investigator to try to learn everything possible about all 
the phases of culture of a single tribe, or, at most, of two or three 
tribes. 

To do this, he "goes into the field." That is, he takes up his 
residence, for a continuous period or repeatedly for several years, 
among a tribe, on its reservation or habitat. He enters into as 
close relations as possible with its most intelligent or authoritative 
( members. He acquires all he can of their language, reduces it to 
writing, perhaps compiles texts, a dictionary or grammar. Day 
after day he records notes from visual observation or the memory 
of the best informants available on the industries, beliefs, government, 
family life, ceremonies, wars, and daily occupations of his chosen 
people. And with all this, there flow in his personal experiences 
and reactions. The final outcome is a monograph — a bulky, detailed, 
often tedious, but fundamental volume, issued by the government or 
a scientific institution. 

It is from intensive studies such as these, that the stories which 
form the present volume have sprung as a by-product. Have sprung 
as a sort of volunteer crop, it might be said, under the stimulus of the 
editorial suggestion of Dr. Parsons. The monographs have a way 
of sticking pretty closely to the objective facts recorded. The mental 



Introduction 



13 



workings of the people whose customs are described, are subjective, 
and therefore much more charily put into print. The result is 
that every American anthropologist with field experience, holds in 
his memory many interpretations, many convictions as to how his 
Indians feel, why they act as they do in a given situation, what goes 
on inside of them. This psychology of the Indian is often expressed 
by the frontiersman, the missionary and trader, by the man of the city, 
even. But it has been very little formulated by the very men who 
know most, who have each given a large block of their lives to acquir- 
ing intensive and exact information about the Indian and his cul- 
ture. 

There is, thus, something new, something of the nature of an 
original contribution, in each of these stories; and they are reliable. 
To many of us, the writing of our tale has been a surprise and of 
value to ourselves. We had not realized how little we knew of the 
workings of the Indian mind on some sides, how much on others. 

The fictional form of presentation devised by the editor has defi- 
nite merit. It allows a freedom in depicting or suggesting the 
thoughts and feelings of the Indian, such as is impossible in a for- 
mal, scientific report. In fact, it incites to active psychological 
treatment, else the tale would lag. At the same time the customs de- 
picted are never invented. Each author has adhered strictly to the 
social facts as he knew them. He has merely selected those that 
seemed most characteristic, and woven them into a plot around an 
imaginary Indian hero or heroine. The method is that of the his- 
torical novel, with emphasis on the history rather than the romance. 

There is but one important precedent for this undertaking, 1 and 
that single-handed instead of collective, and therefore depictive of 
one people only, the Keresan Pueblos. This is The Delight Makers 
of Bandelier, archaeologist, archivist, historian, and ethnologist of a 
generation ago; and this novel still renders a more comprehensive 
and coherent view of native Pueblo life than any scientific volume 
on the Southwest. 

The present book, then, is a picture of native American life, in 
much the sense that a series of biographies of one statesman, poet, or 
common citizen from each country of Europe would yield a cross- 



1 In this connection Grinnell's recent story of the Cheyennes, "Where Buffalo Ran" should 
not be overlooked. Ed. 



14 



American Indian Life 



sectional aspect of the civilization of that continent. France and 
Russia, Serbia and Denmark, would each be represented with its 
national peculiarities; and yet the blended effect would be that of 
a super-national culture. So with our Indians. It is through the 
medium of the intensive and special coloring of each tribal civiliza- 
tion, that the common elements of Indian culture are brought out 
most truthfully, even though somewhat indirectly. 

There are only a few points at which the composite photograph, 
produced by these twenty-seven stories, should be used with caution, 
and these disproportions or deficiencies are unavoidable at present. 
The first of them is religion. The book is likely to make the impres- 
sion that some sixty per cent, of Indian life must have been con- 
cerned with religion. This imbalance is due to the fact that re- 
ligion has become the best known aspect of Indian life. Ritual 
and ceremony follow exact forms which the native is able to relate 
with accuracy from memory, long after the practices have become 
defunct. Moreover, once his confidence is gained, he often delights 
in occupying his mind with the matters of belief and rite that put 
an emotional stamp on his youth. Social usages are much more 
plastic, more profoundly modified to suit each exigency as it arises, 
and therefore more difficult to learn and portray. The mechanical 
and industrial arts have a way of leaving but pallid recollections, 
once they have been abandoned for the white man's manufactures; 
and to get them recreated before one's eyes is usually very time-con- 
suming. Thus, through a tacit coordination of Indians and ethnolo- 
gists to exploit the vein of most vivid productivity, religion has be- 
come obtruded; and some excess must be discounted. Yet the over- 
proportion is perhaps all for the best. For the Indian is, all in all, far 
more religious than we, and the popular idea errs on the side of 
ignoring this factor. The stories are substantially truthful in their 
effect, in that the average Indian did spend infinitely more time on 
affairs of religion than of war, for instance. 

On the side of economics and government, the book is underdone. 
It is so, because ethnological knowledge on these topics is insufficient. 
It is difficult to say why. Possibly ethnologists have not become suffi- 
ciently interested or trained. But economic and political institu- 
tions are unquestionably difficult to learn about. They are the first 



Introduction 15 

to crumble on contact with Anglo-Saxon or Spanish civilization. 
So they lack the definiteness of ceremonialism, and their reconstruc- 
tion from native memories is a bafflingly intricate task. 

As regards daily life, personal relations, and the ambitions and 
ideals of the individual born into aboriginal society, in other words 
the social psychology of the Indian, we have done much better. In 
fact, collectively we have brought out much that is not to be found 
anywhere in the scientific monographs, much even that we had not 
realized could be formulated. This element seems to me to contain 
the greatest value of the book, and to be one that should be of per- 
manent utility to historians and anthropologists, as well as to the 
public which is fortunately free from professional trammels. The 
exhibit of the workings of the Indian mind which these tales yield 
in the aggregate, impresses me as marked by a rather surprising 
degree of insight and careful accuracy. 

Only at one point have we broken down completely : that of humor. 
One might conclude from this volume that humor was a factor absent 
from Indian life. Nothing would be more erroneous. Our testi- 
mony would be unanimous on this score. And yet we have been 
unable to introduce the element. The failure is inevitable. Humor 
is elusive because its understanding presupposes a feeling for the 
exact psychic situation of the individual involved, and this in turn 
implies thorough familiarity with the finest nuances of his cultural 
setting. We could have introduced Indian jokes, practical ones and 
witty ones, but they would have emerged deadly flat, and their laughs 
would have sounded made to order. An Indian himself, or shall 
we say, a contemporary of the ancients, may let his fancy play, and 
carry over to us something of his reaction: witness Aristophanes, 
Plautus, Horace. But the reconstructor, if he is wise, leaves the 
task unattempted. That prince of historical novelists, Walter Scott, 
for the most part collapses sadly when he tries to inject into his 
romances of the Middle Ages, the humor that marks his modern 
novels of Scotland; and so far as he salvages anything, it is by sub- 
stituting the humor of his own day for the actual mediaeval one. 
Hypatia is a superb picture of the break-down of Roman civiliza- 
tion ; but how silly and boring are its humorous passages ! A greater 
artist, in Thais, and another in Sahmmbo, have wisely evaded at- 



1 



16 American Indian Life 

tempting the impossible, and, at most, touched the bounds of irony. 
Where the masters have succumbed or refrained, it is well that we 
scientists, novices in the domain of fiction, should hold off ; though we 
all recognize both the existence and the importance of humor in Ind- 
dian life. This element, then, the reader must accept our bare word 
f or — or supply from his own discrimination and intuition. 

A. L. KROEBER 



AMERICAN INDIAN LIFE 



Takes-the-pipe, a Crow Warrior 

i 

HORSES neighing, women scurrying to cover, the report of guns, his 
mother, Pretty-weasel, gashing her legs for mourning,— that was 
Takes-the-pipe's earliest memory. Later he learned that his own 
father, a famous warrior of the Whistling-water clan, had fallen in 
the fight and that his "father," Deaf-bull, was really a paternal uncle 
who had married the widow. No real father could have been kinder 
than Deaf-bull. If anything, he seemed to prefer his brother's son to 
his own children, always petting him and favoring him with the 
choicest morsels. 

When Pretty-weasel needed help in dressing a hide or pitching a 
tent, her sisters and cousins of the Sore-lip clan came as visitors, often 
bringing moccasins and gewgaws for their little clansman, Takes-the- 
pipe. One of the sisters stood out more clearly than the rest, a lusty 
wench who would pull Deaf-bull by the ear and pour water on his 
face when he took an afternoon nap. He in turn would throw her on 
the ground and tickle her till she bawled for mercy. Another salient 
figure was the grandmother, old Muskrat, who used to croon the boy 
to sleep with a lullaby: "The dog has eaten, he is smoking. Haha, 
huhu ! Haha, huhu !" Whenever she came to the refrain she raised 
a wrinkled, mutilated hand, and snapped what remained of her fin- 
gers in the child's face. 

The people were always traveling back and forth in those days. 
Now Takes-the-pipe was throwing stones into the Little Bighorn, 
then with other boys he was chasing moths in the Wolf Mountains. 
When he caught one he rubbed it against his breast, for they said that 
was the way to become a swift runner. One fall, the Mountain Crow 
traveled to the mouth of the Yellowstone to visit their kin of the River 
band. All winter was spent there. It was fun coasting down-hill 
on a buffalo-rib toboggan and spinning tops on the smooth ice. Each 

17 



i8 



American Indian Life 



boy tried to upset his neighbor's with his own, and when he succeeded 
he would cry, "I have knocked you out!" Takes-the-pipe was a 
good player, but once he came home inconsolable because his fine new 
top was stolen, and another time a bigger lad had cheated, "knocking 
him out" with a stone deftly substituted for the wooden toy. His 
mother comforted him saying, "That boy is crazy! His father is of 
the Bad-honors clan, that's why he acts that way!" 

Takes-the-pipe was still a little fellow when Deaf-bull made him a 
bow and arrows, and taught him to shoot. Now he ran about, letting 
fly his darts against birds and rabbits. There was ample chance to 
gain skill in archery. The boys would tie together a bundle of grass 
and set it on a knoll, then all shot at this target, and the winner took 
all his competitors' arrows. Whenever Takes-the-pipe brought 
home a sheaf of darts, his father would encourage him, saying, 
"You'll be like Sharp-horn, who always brings down his buffalo with 
the first shot." And when his son had killed his first cottontail, Deaf- 
bull proudly called Sliding-beaver, a renowned Whistling-water, 
feasted him royally and had him walk through camp, leading Takes- 
the-pipe mounted on his horse and proclaiming his success in a laud- 
atory chant. 

One spring there was great excitement. The supply of meat was 
exhausted, yet the buffalo remained out of sight. Scouts were sent to 
scour the country in search of game, but in vain. At last Sharp-horn 
offered to lure the buffalo by magic. At the foot of a cliff he had the 
men build a corral. He summoned Deaf-bull to be his assistant. 
"Bring me an old unbroken buffalo chip," he said. Takes-the-pipe 
found one, and together he and his father brought it to the shaman. 
"Someone is trying to starve us; my medicine is stronger than his; we 
w^ll eat," said Sharp-horn. He smoothed the earth in his lodge and 
marked buffalo tracks all over. He put the chip on one of the tracks 
and on the chip a rock shaped like a buffalo's head, which he wore as 
a neck ornament. This rock he smeared with grease. "The buffalo 
are coming, bid the men drive them here," he said. 

Deaf-bull went out and issued the orders received from Sharp- 
horn. On the heights above the corral, old men, women and chil- 
dren strung out in two diverging lines for the distance of a mile or 
two. The young men rode far out till they sighted the herd, got be- 



Takes-the-pipe, a Crow Warrior 



19 



hind it and chased the game between the two lines nearer and nearer 
to the declivity. They drove them down into the corral. Some were 
killed in leaping, others stunned so they could be easily dispatched. 
That was a great day for Takes-the-pipe. He rode double with his 
father, and Deaf-bull was a person of consequence. Had he not as- 
sisted Sharp-horn? Then, too, he was a member of the Big Dog 
Society, and the Big Dogs were the police for that season with power 
to whip every man, woman or child who dared disobey Sharp-horn's 
orders. 

After the hunt, the meat-racks sagged with the weight of the buff- 
alo ribs, and the people made up for past want by gorging themselves 
with fat and tongues. One evening the Big Dogs held a feast and 
dance, the next evening the Fox society, then the Lumpwoods, and so 
on. There were promiscuous gatherings, too, where the valiant war- 
riors rose to tell the assembled multitude about their exploits, while 
the old men exhorted the callow youths to emulate the example of 
their fathers and the camp reechoed the ancient warriors' songs: — 

Sky and earth are everlasting, 
Men must die. 
Old age is a thing of evil, 
Charge and die! 

On one of these occasions Takes-the-pipe was proudly listening to 
Deaf-bull's record. He would have been a chief, had he ever 
wrested a gun from an enemy in a hand-to-hand encounter; in every 
other essential he more than passed muster. Three times he had 
crawled into a Piegan camp and stolen horses picketed to their own- 
ers' tents; six times he had "counted coup" on enemies, touching them 
with his lance or bare hand; twice he had carried the pipe and re- 
turned with blackened face as leader of a victorious expedition. 

While Takes-the-pipe was listening spell-bound to his father's nar- 
rative, he felt a sudden pinch. He turned round to smite his tor- 
mentor only to face Cherry-necklace, a boy somewhat older than 
himself. He was Sliding-beaver's son and that put a different com- 
plexion on the matter, for Sliding-beaver, like Deaf-bull, was a 
Whistling-water, so their sons might take what liberties they chose 
with each other and enjoy complete immunity. At present, how- 
ever, Cherry-necklace had more important business than playing a 
trick on Takes-the-pipe. "Magpie," he whispered, "they are play- 



20 



American Indian Life 



ing magpie." Off both boys dashed to a creek nearby, where some 
twenty lads were already assembled round a big fire. They smeared 
their faces with charcoal till one could hardly recognize his neighbor. 
"Now, we'll be magpies," they said, "Takes-the-pipe is a swift run- 
ner, he shall lead." They scampered back to camp. The women, 
seeing them approach in their disguise, snatched their meat from the 
racks to hide it inside their tents. But Takes-the-pipe had already 
fixed his eye on some prime ribs, pounced upon them and carried off 
his prize, followed by the other boys, each vanishing with what booty 
he could safely capture. 

It was a great gathering about the fireplace by the stream. One of 
the lads strutted up and down as a crier and announced, "Takes-the- 
pipe has stolen the best piece!" Then he and a few others who had 
won like delicacies were granted their choice of the spoils, where- 
upon all feasted. When they had done eating, the oldest boy de- 
clared, "We'll remain seated here. If anyone gets up, we'll rub our 
hands with this grease and smear it over his body." So they sat still 
for a long time. At last Cherry-necklace forgot about the warn- 
ing and got up. In an instant they were upon him like a pack of 
wolves. Here was a fine chance for Takes-the-pipe to get even for 
that pinch; he daubed Cherry-necklace's face all over with the fat. 
Others followed suit and soon his body glistened with grease. He 
leaped into the creek to wash it off, but the water glided off the fat 

II 

The people were moving along the Bighorn, with the long lodge 
poles dragging along the ground. Some dozen girls with toy tents 
were transporting them in imitation of their mothers. Takes-the- 
pipe was riding with the Hammers, a boys' club patterned on the 
men's societies. The members treated dogs or deer as enemies and 
practised counting coup on them. Takes-the-pipe as one of the dare- 
devils carried one of the emblems of the organization, a long stick 
with a Wooden hammer-head pivoted some two feet from its top. 
Suddenly an idea struck him. "Hammers," he cried, "let us offer a 
seat on our horses to the girls we like!" No sooner said than done. 
He himself had had his eye on Otter for some time, and presently the 
two were riding double. 

In the evening when the women of the camp pitched their lodges,. 



Takes-the-pipe, a Crow Warrior 



21 



the Hammer boys' sweethearts set up theirs a little way off. They 
played at married life. Takes-the-pipe sneaked into his mother's 
lodge, purloined some meat, brought it near Otter's tent, and bade her 
fetch the food, which she then cooked for him. Other boys and 
girls did likewise. Thus they played every day while on the march. 
Once Takes-the-pipe killed a young wolf and brought a lock of its 
hair to the young folks' camp. He pretended that it was an enemy's 
scalp and set it on a pole and all the girls had to dance the scalp dance 
around it. There followed a recital of deeds; the boys who had 
struck wolves were allowed to claim coups against the Dakota, and 
those who had touched deer might boast of having stolen picketed 
horses. 

It was a gay journey. But one evening when Takes-the-pipe had 
bragged of his mock exploits, Cherry-necklace suddenly appeared on 
the scene and taunted him before all his playmates, "You think you 
are a man, because you are as tall as Deaf-bull," he cried, "you are 
nothing but a child fit to play with little girls. Have you ever been 
on the war-path? / went with Long-horse and struck a Piegan." 
Takes-the-pipe hung his head. It was only too true. Cherry-neck- 
lace was not so much older, yet he had already distinguished himself 
and might recite his coup in any public assembly. Takes-the-pipe 
had no answer for he knew nothing to fling back in his "joking-rela- 
tive's" teeth, but he resolved forthwith to join a war party at the 
earliest opportunity. 

Not long after this Shinbone let it be known that he was setting out 
on a horse-raid against the Dakota. Now Takes-the-pipe had his 
chance. Well-provided with moccasins by his clanswomen, he 
joined a dozen young men starting afoot on the perilous adventure, — 
perilous because, though Shinbone was a brave man, this was his first 
attempt at leading a party and it remained to be seen whether "his 
medicine was good." They walked for four days. As Takes-the- 
pipe was the youngest of the company, he had to fetch water and fire- 
wood, and one 'morning when he slept too late they poured water all 
over him. 

Warily the party advanced. On the fourth evening Shinbone or- 
dered them to halt on a little knoll. "Yonder are the Dakota lodges," 
he said, "early to-morrow morning we will go there." He took his 
sacred bundle, unwrapping a weasel skin stuffed with deer hair, and 



22 



American Indian Life 



pointed it toward the camp. "The Dakota are tired," he said, "they 
will sleep late." Before dawn he roused the party. He appointed 
two young men as scouts. They came back. "Well," he asked, 
"how is it?" 

"Where you pointed, there are the Dakota lodges," they replied. 

"It is well," he said. He chose four others to drive all the loose 
horses out of the camp. They left. They had not gone far when 
they were overtaken by Takes-the-pipe. "What are you doing? 
Go back. He did not send vow." 

"I am going to the camp to cut a horse or strike a coup." 

"You are crazy! We are older than you and are still without hon- 
ors. We are here to steal horses, not to score deeds. The one who 
is carrying our pipe is a new leader, he may not be very powerful and 
you will spoil his luck. Go back!" 

But though they threatened to beat him, Takes-the-pipe would not 
return and so all five approached the camp. There were the lodges 
ranged in a circle. The inmates seemed plunged in sleep. Near the 
edge a herd of horses were peacefully grazing. The scouts quietly 
stole up to them and began to drive them off toward the rest of their 
party. In the meantime Takes-the-pipe was getting his bearings in 
the strange encampment. He cast about for a picketed horse, but 
there was none to be seen. Then of a sudden, chance favored him. 
Out of a little tent on the outskirts of the circle a wizened old man 
came hobbling on a staff. Takes-the-pipe stole up behind him and 
dealt him a stunning blow. "Heha!" he cried, counting coup on the 
prostrate foe. Then he dashed towards his friends, who had 
watched him from a little distance. As yet there was no alarm, but 
no time was to be lost. They mounted and drove the horses before 
them. When they reached Shinbone, the rest of the party got on 
horseback. "Now we will run!" said the captain. 

They had come and gone to the Dakota afoot and slowly enough; 
now they were mounted, and traveled at top speed, for they knew that 
before long the enemy would be in their wake. They rode on and on 
till they got to the brink of a rapid stream. Here, some of their sto- 
len horses turned back, but the greatest number they saved, driving 
them through the ice-cold water, where they themselves felt as though 
they must die from the cold. They traveled that day and all through 
the night without stopping to eat. On the following morning they 



Takes-the-pipe, a Crow Warrior 23 

reached the Crow camp, sore and worn out, but with sixty head of 
horses. By rights they all belonged to Shinbone, but after the fash- 
ion of a good leader, he was generous to his followers and let them 
have nearly half of the herd. Takes-the-pipe won three horses. 

His parents rejoiced when they heard of his coup and his booty. 
His mother and her sisters at once prepared a magnificent feast, 
to which all the Sore-lip women contributed. On such occasions 
it behooved a young man to give lavish entertainment to his father's 
kin, so that he might live to be an old man. So Deaf-bull invited 
all the eminent Whistling-water men, and Takes-the-pipe selected 
Sliding-beaver from among them, presenting him with a fine bay 
horse. Then Sliding-beaver trudged through camp, leading Takes- 
the-pipe's horse and singing the young man's praises. 

Ill 

He was rolling a hoop and another youth was hurling a dart at it 
when Shinbone clutched him by the arm. "Come, I'll make a man 
of you. You shall take the place of your elder brother." Takes- 
the-pipe knew what he meant: a cousin of his belonging to the Fox 
society had fallen in a skirmish with the Dakota, and his fellow-mem- 
bers had been casting about for a clubbable kinsman. 

Now a new sort of life began for Takes-the-pipe. He no longer 
roamed about aimlessly or consorted with random companions. His 
fellow-members were now his constant associates. Spare time was 
whiled away in the lodges of eminent Foxes, beating the drum and 
singing the songs of the organization. Now and then the younger 
members took jaunts to the hills with their sweethearts. Again there 
was a philandering when the Foxes and their girls went berrying or 
up to the mountains to drag lodge poles to camp. Often enough 
a wealthy member had a herald invite all the Foxes to his lodges, 
where they were feasted, and held a dance. There, too, valiant 
men rose to expatiate on their prowess. The Foxes had done well 
that year. Shinbone had struck the first coup of the season, thus 
making his club take precedence of the rival Lumpwood society. 
By the rules of the game the Lumpwoods had lost the right to sing 
their own songs, and when they danced they were obliged to borrow 
those of the Big Dogs, exposing themselves to the mockery of the 
Foxes. That year Takes-the-pipe joined a number of war parties 



24 



American Indian Life 



and succeeded in capturing an enemy's gun. Now he, too, would 
rise and tell about his martial experiences. 

The following spring there were great doings. The Foxes were 
electing new officers in place of the last year's standard-bearers. 
Three or four of the elders had had a council and now they came to 
the club lodge where all the members were gathered. Two of 
the emblems of the society were straight staffs, two were hooked 
and wrapped with otterskin. Each was pointed at the bottom, for 
in sight of the enemy the bearer was obliged to plant it into the 
earth, and stand his ground regardless of danger or death, without 
budging an inch unless a companion plucked out the fatal lance. 
That was why the officers were called "men doomed to die." If 
they escaped unscathed by the end of the year, they retired with 
all the honors of distinguished service; if they died in battle, they 
were solemnly mourned by their fellow-members and other tribes- 
men ; but if they failed in duty, they became the pariahs of the camp. 

There were not many young men eager to undertake so arduous 
an office. The electors were passing round the circle, offering a 
pipe to likely candidates, for to smoke it meant acceptance. Some 
of the faint-hearted ones crouched behind others to escape notice 
and even some, who were forward enough on other occasions, shrank 
back. First the elders went to the tried warriors. No trouble was 
expected with Shinbone, and as a matter of fact he readily consented. 
Next they came to Lone-pine, Sliding-beaver's eldest son. He, too, 
smoked without sign of reluctance. But now the electors were 
beginning to cast about among the younger fellow'-members, for 
they were coming towards Cherry-necklace. Cherry-necklace was 
no coward; he had shown his mettle in more than one encounter. 
Yet he was very fond of having a good time. Would he willingly 
accept appointment? No, he was squirming uneasily and refused 
the pipe. Rather, he would have refused it, but Lone-pine, his 
brother, seized him by the bang of his hair and forcibly made his 
lips touch the pipestem. Thus Cherry-necklace too was "doomed 
to die." And now the elders passed round once more in search of 
the last officer. Takes-the-pipe's heart began to beat. What if 
they asked him? It would be an honor for one so young, but did 
he wish to die? They were coming straight toward him. He 
seemed to hear the old song: 



Takes-the-pipe, a Crow Warrior 25 

Sky and earth are everlasting, 
Men must die. 

Yes, if he died, what mattered it? He would yield without coax- 
ing and shame Cherry-necklace. He eagerly clutched the pipe and 
became one of the bearers of a hooked-staff. 

While the Foxes were holding their annual election, the Lump- 
woods were going through a like procedure. A day or two later, 
a defiant call was heard from their lodge. They were ready for the 
annual indulgence in licensed wife-stealing. Only the Foxes and 
the Lumpwoods took part in this pastime, the other societies being 
mere spectators. If a Fox had ever had for his sweetheart a Lump- 
wood's wife, he was now privileged to kidnap her from her rightful 
husband, who would only make himself a laughing-stock if he inter- 
posed objections, let alone violence. Takes-the-pipe remembered 
that Otter was now married to a Lumpwood named Drags-the-wolf, 
so he went to the lodge and called her. Drags-the-wolf was game. 
He had the reputation of being very fond of his pretty, young wife, 
but he knew the proper way for a Crow to act. Instead of restrain- 
ing her, he himself said, "He is calling you. Go!" Takes-the- 
pipe brought her to his parents' lodge. His mother and sisters 
gave her a beautiful elk-tooth dress and other Sore-lip women from 
all over the camp brought her moccasins and beaded pouches. Then 
the Foxes selected from their number an old man who had once 
rescued a wounded tribesman from certain death by dashing into 
the thick of the fray, and carrying him off on his horse. This 
man, for none other might venture, rode double with the kid- 
napped bride, all the other Foxes parading jubilantly behind and 
twitting their rivals with the capture of so handsome a Lump- 
wood woman. 

IV 

Shinbone had come home from a war party with blackened face and 
taken the rank of chief. No wonder, the people were saying. Had 
not the Thunderbird adopted him when as a young man he prayed 
and thirsted for a revelation? Men must undergo suffering if they 
wanted supernatural blessing so that they could become great men 
among their people. Of all the Crow chiefs, only Drags-the-wolf 
had been in luck : him the Moon visited as he was peacefully slumber- 



26 



American Indian Life 



ing in his tent and granted him invulnerability and coups. The 
other distinguished warriors had had to mortify their flesh in order 
to gain favor. 

That spring the herald proclaimed that Red-eye was going to hold 
a Sun Dance. He had lost a brother and was hungering for revenge. 
What surer way to attain it than to fast and dance before the sacred 
doll till it became alive and showed him a scalped Dakota in earnest 
of victory and vengeance? But Red-eye's announcement was a 
signal for all the ambitious youths to plan for a public mortification 
of their flesh at the same time in the hope of winning supernatural 
favor. So, while the pledger of the ceremony was dancing up and 
down with his gaze riveted on the holy image in the rear of the 
lodge, a dozen young men were undergoing torture for their own 
ends. Some were dragging through camp two buffalo skulls fastened 
to a stick thrust through holes cut in their backs. Others — and 
Takes-the-pipe among them — decided to swing from the lodge poles. 
So he begged Sharp-horn to pierce the flesh above his breasts, run 
skewers through the openings, and tie the rods to ropes hung from 
a pole. Thus attached he ran back and forth till he had torn out the 
skewers. Yet when he had fallen to the ground faint and blood- 
stained no vision came for all his pains. 

He wanted to become a chief like Shinbone, so he went on a moun- 
tain peak to fast. Without clothes save his gee-string and a buffalo 
robe, he slept there overnight. He awoke early, the sun had just 
risen. He took a piece of wood and put on it his left forefinger. 
"Sun," he cried, "I am miserable. I am giving you this. Make 
me a chief!" With a huge knife he hacked off the first joint. The 
blood began to flow. He lost consciousness. When he came to, 
it was evening. His finger ached. He tried to sleep, but the pain 
and cold kept him awake. Of a sudden he heard a man clearing 
his throat and a horse's neighing came closer and closer. A voice 
behind him said, "The one whom you wanted to come has arrived." 
He turned about. He saw a man on a bay horse; his face was 
painted red and he wore a shirt with many discs cut out from its 
body, yet hanging from it as though by a thread. From the back of 
his head rose a chicken-hawk feather. The rider said, "You are 
miserable. I have been looking for you for a long time but could 
never quite reach you. I will adopt you as my child. Look! I am 



Takes-the-pipe, a Crow Warrior 



27 



going to run." He began to gallop; the dust flew to the sky. Then 
the trees and shrubs all about turned into Piegans and began shooting 
at the horseman. Arrows came whizzing by him and bullets flew 
round him and the enemies were yelling after him, but he wheeled 
round unscathed. With his spear he knocked down one warrior 
and counted coup on him. He rode up to Takes-the-pipe: "Though 
you fight all the people of the world, dress as I do and you need 
have no fear of death before you are a chief. That man I struck is 
a Piegan ; you have seen his country, go there, I give him to you. As 
I am, so shall you be; arrows will not hurt you, bullets you can 
laugh at. You shall be like a rock. But one thing you must not 
do: never eat of any animal's kidneys." 

When Takes-the-pipe got back to his people, he was very glad. 
Two things remained to be done before he might call himself chief : 
one was to lead a victorious war party, the other to cut a picketed 
horse. His vision enabled him forthwith to play a captain's part 
He shot a chicken-hawk and took one of its feathers to be worn 
at the back of his head on his expeditions. He prepared a shirt 
like the one he had seen and a spear that resembled exactly that 
borne by his patron. Then he gathered his war party. His sisters 
and other Sore-lip women made moccasins galore for him. He set 
out in the dead of night. For several days they traveled north and 
west. On the Missouri they ran into a few Piegans in a hunting- 
lodge. They killed them all and took their scalps. Thus they could 
return with blackened faces. One of the enemies had a thumbless 
hand, so the year was known ever after as "the winter when they 
killed the thumbless man." 

V 

He had been wounded in the knee. He could not understand it. 
He had been promised that his body would be like stone. He had 
worn his feather at the back of his head, as in every fight since the 
time of his vision, yet his kneecap had been shattered in a skirmish 
with the Dakota. And it was an ugly injury. Red-eye had salved it 
with bear root, but the cure-all had failed. Bullsnake, foremost 
of doctors, blessed by the buffalo, had waded into the river to wash 
his knee, but all in vain; he remained crippled. Then he knew 
that he had unwittingly broken his guardian spirit's rule; there had 



28 



American Indian Life 



been a feast before the fatal battle and then he must have eaten of 
the forbidden food. 

Soon there came surety. In a dream appeared the man on the 
bay horse and said: "I told you not to eat kidney, you have eaten 
it. You shall never be chief." Takes-the-pipe had now struck 
many coups and captured guns and carried the captain's pipe. His 
record surpassed that of any man of his age, but he lacked the honor 
of cutting a picketed horse. How could he ever gain it now? Horse- 
raiders started on foot, and he could only painfully limp across the 
camp. 

Young women, drawn by his fame, often visited him in his tent, 
but their attentions soon palled on him. His mother tried to console 
him. "Of all the young men you are the best-off; you have struck 
more coups than the rest and own plenty of horses ; the young women 
are crazy about you. You ought to be the happiest man in camp." 
But he would watch the bustle of preparations for new raids that 
he could not join ; he would ride about of an evening and chance upon 
the foot-soldiers setting out from their trysting-place, and would 
look after them, wistful and envious and sick at heart. 

Sharp-horn, the aged sage, advised him to go for another vision; 
possibly the guardian spirit would relent. So Takes-the-pipe started 
out on horseback and rode far away towards the mountain where he 
had prayed before. At the foot he hobbled his horse and painfully 
climbed to the summit. He lay down, with outstretched arms, facing 
the sky. "Father," he wailed, "I am miserable, take pity on me." 
He lay there during the night but at the first glimmer of dawn there 
was still no message from the mysterious powers. All day he stayed 
about the jagged bowlders without drink or a morsel to eat. 

Long after nightfall a muffled tread became audible and as it came 
closer it was the tramp of a buffalo. Then a bull was standing over 
him, scenting his breath and caressing his naked breast with shaggy 
fur. At last he spoke in Crow. "I will adopt you my son. I have 
seen you suffering from afar. What other Indians have prayed for 
shall be yours. Look at the inside of my mouth." He looked and 
there was not a tooth to be seen. "So long as you have teeth, my son, 
you shall not die. You shall marry a fine, chaste, young woman 
and beget children and see your grandchildren about you. When 



Takes-the-pipe, a Crow Warrior 



29 



you die you shall be so old that your skin will crack as you move from 
one corner of the lodge to another." 

But Takes-the-pipe shook his head and said, "Father, it is not 
because I crave old age that I am thirsting; I want to be a chief 
like Shinbone." 

"My son, what you ask is difficult. As I hurried to you from my 
home, I overtook another person traveling towards you ; perhaps 
you will still be able to get what you desire." Takes-the-pipe sat 
up to ask further counsel, but the bull was gone and nothing but a 
bleached buffalo skull was gaping at him in the gloaming. 

All next day he fasted and prayed on his peak, addressing now 
the Sun, then the Thunder, then again the Mornings tar. His throat 
was parched when he lay down at dark in his old resting-place. He 
did not know how, but of a sudden the darkness was lifted and the 
hilltop shone with a gentle radiance. An old woman was standing 
at his feet, resting on a digging-stick; she wore a splendid robe with 
horsetracks marked on it in porcupine-quill embroidery. "My 
child," she said, "you have not called me, nevertheless I am here. 
I heard your groans and started towards you but another person 
passed me on the road. I am the Moon. When children fall sick, 
doctor them with this root; their parents will give you horses. I 
will make you the wealthiest of all the Crows." 

But Takes-the-pipe shook his head and answered, "Grandmother, 
I am not suffering to gain wealth, I want to become a chief like 
Shinbone." 

"My dear child, you are asking for something great. As I came 
hither, I saw another person starting to come here. Perhaps he has 
more power than I, and can grant your wish." He was eager to ask 
her more, but her form faded into nothing and only the sheen of the 
waning crescent remained visible. 

Another day he fasted and drank no water. He was now very 
weak, so that he dragged himself about with the aid of a cane. Was 
there no power to help him in his distress? Night came as he lay 
wailing and peering into the darkness, when a handsome young man 
stood before him. "I was sleeping far away, you have roused me 
with your lamentations," he said. "I have come to help you. You 
shall be my son. Do you recognize me? I am the Tobacco your 



30 



American Indian Life 



old people plant every year. So long as they harvest me, the Crow 
shall be a great tribe. They have forgotten the way to prepare the 
seed, their crops will be poor. I will show you how to mix it before 
planting. Then you will make your tribe great and teach others and 
receive all sorts of property in payment." 

And Takes-the-pipe answered; "Father, I am not suffering in 
order to plant tobacco and gain property, I want to be a chief like 
Shinbone." 

Then the man replied, "My son, everything else in the universe 
is easy for me, only what you ask for is hard. That one who used 
to be your father is very strong. 'Don't eat kidney,' he said. You 
have eaten it. I cannot make you chief. Listen, my son. All 
things in the world go by fours. Three of us have come to help you. 
We have been powerless. A fourth one is coming, perhaps he can 
doit." 

The next day Takes-the-pipe could hardly crawl on all-fours. His 
head swam. He seized his knife and chopped off another finger 
joint on his left hand. Then holding aloft the bleeding stump he 
cried, "Fathers, I am giving you this. Make me a chief!" 

Suddenly a huge figure came panting toward him, shaking a 
rattle and singing a song. "I am the last," said a big bear; "though 
I am heavy and slow, I have arrived." 

Takes-the-pipe called out to him joyfully, "Father, I knew you 
were coming. Cure my knee so that I can go out to cut a picketed 
horse and become a chief." 

"My son, the one who used to be your father is very strong. He 
does not want you to be a chief. Well, I too am strong. If you are 
a man, I can help you. If you are faint-hearted, I am powerless." 

"Father," said Takes-the-pipe, "make me great; make me greater 
than other men, and if I die what matters it?" 

"My son, there are many chiefs in camp; of your kind there shall 
be but one. Tell me, have you ever seen the whole world?" With- 
out waiting for an answer, the bear lifted him up. Mountains and 
streams and prairies and camps came into his vision. The berries 
were ripe and the Crow camp loomed in sight and the Tobacco 
society were harvesting the precious seed. Far away were hostile 
lodges. Then the leaves were turning yellow and the enemy were 
setting out to raid Crow horses. One Crow all alone was riding 



Takes-the-pipe, a Crow Warrior 31 

towards them. "My son, do you see that horseman with trailing 
sashes? They were trying to hold him back, he has broken loose. 
He could not be a chief; he wants to die. He is a Crazy Dog. He 
speaks 'backward' ; he cares little for the rules of the camp. Where 
there is danger, he is the foremost. Dress like him, act like him, 
and you shall be great. The people Will speak of you so long as 
there are Crows living on this earth. This I will give you if your 
heart is strong." 

"Thanks, father, thanks! What you have shown me is great; 
I will do it. I wanted to live and be a chief. It cannot be. There 
is no way for me to live ; I shall die as a Crazy Dog." 

Then the bear vanished. 

VI 

The people were gathered near the mouth of the Bighorn. There 
was merriment in camp after a successful hunt. Suddenly was 
heard the beating of a drum and the chanting of a strange song. 
All ran out of their lodges to see what was going on. Who is that 
man on the richly fitted-out horse? He approaches the center of 
the circle, shaking a rattle. Two sashes of deerskin, slipped over 
his head, descend to the ground. Sliding-beaver is leading the 
horse, halting from time to time, and beating a drum. At the fourth 
stop he cried aloud : "Young women, if you would be this man's 
sweethearts, you must hasten, he is about to die!" Then he beat 
his drum and addressed the rider: "Remain on horseback, do not 
dance!" 

Forthwith Takes-the-pipe dismounted and danced in position. 
Then because he did the opposite of what he was told everyone knew 
him for a Crazy Dog pledged to court death. Straightway Pretty- 
weasel began to lament: "I begged him not to do it; he has done 
it!" But the other women cheered lustily, and Sliding-beaver sang 
his praises aloud as he slowly led him outside of the camp circle. 

Then for a while he appeared every evening, dancing and shaking 
his rattle. He would ride through camp like a madman. When 
a few were gathered eating some meat, he would walk his horse 
into their very midst as if to run over them. Then they would cry 
out, "Trample on us." And the Crazy Dog would turn aside and 
let them eat in peace. At night the best-looking young women paid 



32 



American Indian Life 



him visits; even married women went there and their husbands did 
not mind it. Sometimes two or three would come of a single night. 
Famous Whistling-waters came to tell him what a great thing he 
was doing. All the eminent warriers in camp, Drags-the-wolf, Red- 
eye, and Shinbone, were looking on him with envy. 

The cherries had ripened and one day a woman offered him some. 
He said, "When I decided to do this, the grass was sprouting. I did 
not expect to live so long, yet to-day I am eating cherries. Well, I 
will see whether I can achieve what I wish." When they went 
hunting the next time, he got some buffalo blood and mixed it with 
badger blood and water. In the mixture he saw his image with 
blood streaming down his face. "Yes," he cried, "I have seen it. 
What I am longing for is coming true!" 

The leaves were turning yellow when a tribesman caught sight 
of some Dakota raiders. The young men drove them off and the 
enemy took refuge in the dry bed of a stream. There, the Crow 
warriors were going to attack them. They were getting ready when 
Pretty-weasel rushed into their midst, crying, "Bind my son! Don't 
let him go!" They looked for him. He was not to be found. All 
alone he was dashing toward the enemy. They galloped after him. 
He was close to the coulee, shaking his rattle and singing his song: — 

Sky and earth are everlasting, 
Men must die. 
Old age is a thing of evil, 
Ch.irge and die ! 

He rode straight up to the enemies' hiding-place. At the edge he 
dismounted. Several Dakotas were peeping out. "There is no 
way for me to live," he cried, "I must die!" He shot one foe and 
struck him with his rattle. Then another Dakota shot him in the 
left temple, and Takes-the-pipe fell dead. 

The Crow warriers caught up, and killed every man in the raiding 
party. Pretty-weasel reached the spot and wiped the blood from 
her son's forehead. The men put him on a horse and brought him 
to camp. Wailing, they went home. There the Sore-lip women 
clipped their hair and gashed their legs. The Whistling-water men 
rode up and down singing the praises of the dead Crazy Dog. His 
fellow-Foxes propped up the corpse against a backrest, knelt before 
it and wailed. Their officers ran arrows through their flesh and 



Takes-the-pipe, a Crow Warrior 33 

jabbed their foreheads till the blood flowed in streams. Then they 
set up a scaffold on four posts, wrapped the body in a robe, and placed 
it on top. Beside the stage they planted a pole. From it was hung 
his drum, and his sashes swept down as streamers blowing in the 
wind. His rattle they put into his hand. Then the camp moved. 

Robert H. Lowie 



A Crow Woman's Tale 



"A STORY, grandmother, a story!" 

"What, in the daytime, outdoors? And in the summer too? 
Don't you know that we tell tales only of a winter night?" 

"Oh, grandmother, those old rules are gone. Do tell us a story 
to keep us awake on this hot day." 

"Well, what shall it be? Shall I tell you how Old-woman's grand- 
child conquered the monsters that haunted the earth?" 

"No, you've told us that one many times. Tell us a new one." 

"Well, you shall hear one you have never heard before; a new 
story and yet a true one." 

There was a young Crow maiden named Beaver-woman who was 
as good-looking as any girl the Crows had ever known. She was 
neither too tall nor too short, her waist was slim, and her nose was 
as straight as a nose can be. She made the finest moccasins in all the 
tribe and knew how to embroider them with the prettiest quill de- 
signs. Throughout the camp there was no one for whom she did not 
have a kind word. The young men respected her for they knew she 
would not romp with them as some girls did, and those older ones 
who had been on the war-path were eager to take her to wife. Yet 
though one suitor after another came to offer horses to her father, the 
beautiful girl refused them all. At length her parents grew impa- 
tient and scolded her. "What are you waiting for? Your brothers 
have need of horses. Do you expect Morningstar to come down 
from the sky and woo you?" 

Then for the first time she spoke of her hopes. "One day when the 
grass was sprouting, I went to the creek to fetch some water. There 
my eldest brother's comrade, the one they call White-dog, spoke to 
me and courted me, then left with a war party. I have seen him in 
my dreams, returning with booty. He is bringing home horses; he 
will offer you more than all the other suitors together who have tried 
to buy me." 

35 



36 



American Indian Life 



Then one of her brothers laughed in derision, and another good- 
naturedly, and still others kept their peace, while her mother mum- 
bled, "Some dreams have come true and some only mock one. I 
liked the looks of the horses you refused." 

But a few days later, when the cherries were ripe, White-dog came 
back with his party, driving eighty head of horses stolen from the 
Sioux. Many he allotted to his followers and many he gave away to 
his father's clansmen ; but of the remainder he offered the twenty fin- 
est to Beaver-woman's parents. Then she was happy and said, "My 
dream has come true." Her parents, too, were very glad, and she 
went to live in her husband's lodge. 

White-dog had an older wife named Turtle, whom he had inher- 
ited from a brother killed in battle. Turtle did not like the new- 
comer, but White-dog would not allow her to abuse Beaver-woman. 
He was very proud of his young and beautiful wife. When the peo- 
ple moved camp, it was Beaver-woman who bore his buffalo-hide 
shield; and when he came back from the enemy with spoils, she was 
the one to dance with his bow or spear while Turtle and other women 
looked on with envy. There was one thing he prized even higher 
than her good looks, and that was her virtue. Other men were hav- 
ing all sorts of trouble with their wives, but he was sure of his. 
When he heard of a married woman eloping with her lover, he would 
say proudly, "My wife will soon be the only one who shall dare chop 
down the tree for the Sun Dance lodge" ; for only a Wife who had 
never erred was allowed to take part in this sacred rite. 

All went well until one spring soon after Beaver-woman had borne 
her first child. You young men have your dancing-clubs today, 
some of you are Hot Dancers and others belong to the Big-Ear-Holes. 
That's the way we Crows used to have it in the old days, only we had 
real societies, the Foxes and the Lumpwoods. They didn't just 
dance and feast; they tried to be brave in war and each society sought 
to outdo the other. But they fought in another way, too. Some- 
times it happened that a Lumpwood or a Fox had once had a mis- 
tress who afterwards married into the other society. Then for a few 
days in the early spring he was allowed to kidnap her. No matter 
how badly he felt about it, her husband durst not protect her, it would 
have been a terrible disgrace. He must never take her back so long 
as he lived, or the whole camp would jeer at him for the rest of his 



A Crow Woman's Tale 



37 



days. Often a man might feel like fighting, but he would control 
himself and say, "She is nothing to me, take her." Then the people 
would praise him, saying, "That one has a strong heart." 

Well, one day in the spring, a hooting was heard in camp. The 
Lumpwoods, headed by Red-eye, were ready to steal the Foxes' 
wives, and the Foxes had answered the call of challenge. White-dog 
was not greatly interested in these doings. He was lounging in his 
lodge, talking to his younger brother, Little-owl, while Beaver-wo- 
man was crooning a song over her baby. Of a sudden the tramping 
of feet was heard, the door-flap was rudely lifted, and Red-eye's head 
was thrust through the opening. Beaver-woman faced him calmly. 
"What's the matter?" she asked. 

He answered with a song: 

"My sweetheart is the one I love, 
I am taking her away." 

"Go away, you're crazy," she said, "I have never been your sweet- 
heart!" 

"What, don't you remember what happened at the spring?" 

"Yes, you were going to hug me and I drenched you with water. 
Go away to your real sweetheart." 

But now Red-eye had entered the lodge with two of his compan- 
ions and was about to lay hands on her. Then she knew that it was 
no jest, that he was falsely claiming her as a one-time mistress and she 
screamed aloud at her husband. 

"He is lying, you know he is lying! Help me!" All this time 
White-dog was sitting in the rear of the lodge, stiff and silent. He 
knew the charge against his wife was false, and hatred filled him 
against her wanton accuser. He also knew that unless he fought for 
her now she was lost forever. But it was not a man's part to show 
resentment at such times. Just because no one in camp would be- 
lieve in Red-eye's tale, he, White-dog, would be all the greater for 
having shown a strong heart. So with stern face he turned to his 
wife and said, "They are calling you, go." But as they seized her, 
up sprang Little-owl, White-dog's younger brother, a gentle young 
man who loved Beaver-woman and had always shown respect for her 
instead of teasing her as most brothers-in-law do with their brothers' 
wives. He picked up a large butchering-knife from the ground and 



38 American Indian Life 

rushed at Red-eye crying, "You lie, you lie!" But now White-dog, 
too, leaped up and with his greater strength pinioned his brother's 
arms behind his back. He wanted no scuffle when his wife was 
being kidnapped; it would have been a disgrace. Thus Red-eye 
dragged Beaver-woman away without interference. 

The Lumpwoods had a grand feast and a dress parade on horse- 
back, and Beaver-woman had to ride double with the greatest war- 
rior in the society. They had dressed her up in the finest elk-tooth 
dress and everyone admired her good looks, but she was sad and 
could not hold back her tears. All the Foxes stood round about to 
see the spectacle, and among them was White-dog, looking on as if 
nothing had happened. For he wanted to show what a strong heart 
he had. 

When the celebration was over, Beaver-woman had to live as the 
wife of Red-eye, whom she hated. One night she stole to White- 
dog's lodge and begged him to take her back. But White-dog got 
angry and bade her depart. "Do you believe he was ever my lover?" 
she asked. 

He answered, "I do not believe it, but he has made the charge and 
seized you. Go back. I do not want people to sing songs in mock- 
ery of me." And when she lingered he thrust her out and struck her 
a blow, — he who had never beaten her before. Then she mourn- 
fully retraced her steps towards her new home. But before she had 
gotten very far she felt a light tap on her shoulder. She turned 
about and faced not White-dog but his younger brother. 

"The people here are bad," said Little-owl, "come, let us two flee. 
By the mouth of the Yellowstone there are Crows too, and down the 
Missouri are the villages of the Corn-eaters. I have relatives among 
both; let us go and live with them." So in the same night they 
packed some dried meat and other necessaries and they started north- 
ward down the Yellowstone without being detected in camp. 

But on the second day's journey they were espied by a group of 
scouting Cheyenne. Little-owl fought bravely but was killed and 
scalped. Beaver-woman with her baby became a captive of the hos- 
tile tribe, and the leader of the party took her as his wife, when 
they got back to the Cheyenne camp. Her new husband was a great 
warrior and treated her kindly, but he was an elderly man and she 
could not love him as she had loved White-dog. She grieved, too, 



A Crow Woman's Tale 



39 



for gentle Little-owl who had died for love of her, and she longedto 
go back to her own people. 

About a year later another Crow woman was brought to camp 
as a captive. That was a joyful day for Beaver-woman. Now she 
learned all the news about her own people. She heard that Red-eye 
was dead, killed by lightning, and all the Crows said it was because 
he had abducted an innocent woman. White-dog had not married 
again; he had even sent away Turtle, his elder wife. He was more 
famous as a brave than ever, for he had struck several enemies and 
stolen two picketed horses from the Sioux. The people talked 
about his recklessness and thought he would surely become a chief. 

When Beaver-woman heard about her people, she was filled with 
a great longing to go back to them. "We are not far from our own 
people," she said, "let us run back there together. My husband is 
setting out against the Sioux; then we can escape." So they made 
their get-away and arrived in safety among their own tribe. Beaver- 
woman went straight to her first husband's lodge. She found him 
alone, smoothing an arrow-shaft. "They told me that other man was 
killed by lightning; I have come back," she said. But he hardly 
looked up. 

"A man does not take back a kidnapped wife," he said, "go away." 
Then she saw that she had come in vain and, weeping, she went to her 
parents' home. 

White-dog had always had a strong heart. But now the people 
were saying that he was positively foolhardy. When enemies were 
entrenched, he was the first to lead the attack; when a hostile camp 
was to be entered, he was the first to volunteer; he was always plan- 
ning a raid against the Cheyenne or Sioux. But one time a Crow 
party returned wailing: White-dog had fallen in a reckless charge 
and they were bearing his corpse for burial among his people. 
His kinsfolk and the Foxes and all the tribe mourned his 
death, and the women in his family gashed themselves with knives 
to show their grief. But none grieved more, or inflicted more cruel 
wounds upon herself than Beaver-woman, and for a whole year she 
wore ragged clothes, and let her hair hang down disheveled. Then, 
because she was still good-looking, men came once more to woo her, 
and at length, because her brothers urged her, she married an oldish 
man and bore him children. And her children, as they grew up, 



40 American Indian Life 

married and had children too. But all her life she could not forget 
those early days when White-dog came and took her as his wife. 

* * * 

The old woman paused. 

"Thanks, grandmother, yours is a good story and a new one, too. 
What times! Aren't we happy now to live in peace, without being 
disturbed by Sioux or Cheyenne and without the women being kid- 
napped by a society of our own?" 

The old woman straightened up and looked at the youth with a 
disdainful glance. "You boys who go to school don't understand 
anything. The longer you stay there, the less sense you have. I 
once hoped to cut down the sacred tree in the Sun Dance! I bore 
White-dog's shield when the camp moved! I danced, holding his 
spear, with Turtle and all the other women looking on in envy! 
Little-owl died for love of me! White-dog threw away his life be- 
cause he could not take me back!" 

Robert H. Lowie 



A Trial of Shamans 



BlG-DOG was troubled; he knew he should not sleep that night. 
White-hip, blind old White-hip, had passed him with a taunt. He 
did not mind the old fellow's gibes, yet. . . . 

It all happened long ago. White-hip was stretched out in his 
lodge one night when a young kinsman named Shows-his-horse 
burst in upon him. 

"They say you are a great medicine man, take pity on me, I am 
in distress." 

"Well, what ails you?" 

"As I approached my tent this evening, a man came out, wrapped 
in his robe. He has stolen my wife ; I want revenge." 

Then White-hip said, "You are my younger brother; I will help 
you. Who is it that has stolen your wife?" 

Shows-his-horse replied, "It was Big-dog." 

Then White-hip shrank back and asked, "Are you sure it was Big- 
dog? The night is dark, you may have made a mistake." 

But the young man answered, "It was still light when I saw him, — 
a short, stocky man with the wolf-tails at his heels plainly visible 
dragging along the ground." 

White-hip said, "My younger brother, it is wrong for a man to 
mind the loss of a woman. If your joking-relatives should hear of 
this, they will sing songs in mockery of you. This is dangerous 
business. The Thunder himself has adopted Big-dog as his child." 

Then Shows-his-horse flared up. "They told me you were a 
great medicine man, that is why I came to you in my grief. I see 
you are afraid; your medicine is worthless." 

Then for a long time White-hip spoke not a word. At length 
he said, "It will be very difficult, but my medicine is strong. Though 
the Thunder himself be his father, I will lay him low." 

It happened that a few days later Big-dog set out on a war party 
against the Sioux. Then White-hip prayed to the sacred stone that 

41 



42 American Indian Life 

was his medicine. And Big-dog's war party was met by a superior 
force of Sioux that killed one of his followers and scattered the rest. 
There was grief in the Crow camp and the people were wondering 
about Big-dog's first failure. But Shows-his-horse brought his three 
best horses as a gift to White-hip, and slowly the news leaked out 
that a trial of strength was on between the two great shamans of the 
tribe. 

Soon after this event White-hip, too, wanted to go on the war- 
path, and the men who had been thwarted by Big-dog's failure were 
eager to join him. But the very night they set out, Big-dog prayed 
to the Thunder: "I do not want you to afflict my people; only he 
that leads them shall meet with disaster." And it rained and stormed 
in the war party's path, and a tree, felled by lightening, grazed the 
captain's shoulder. Then the braves were alarmed and insisted on 
turning back. 

Thus, when either of the shamans had set out against the enemy, 
the other was sure to thwart him, till neither ventured on a war party, 
and the whole camp were wondering who should conquer in the 
end. At last Big-dog could contain himself no longer. Once more 
he addressed the Thunder: "These scars are from the flesh I cut 
as an offering to you, these finger-joints were chopped to make you 
a present. You made me your child. That one is mocking me and 
you. He thinks his is the greater medicine; smite him with blind- 
ness." 

And before the cherries had ripened, White-hip had lost his 
sight. Then Big-dog triumphed and the Crows all said that he was 
the greatest shaman they had ever had and that his medicine was the 
most powerful of all; and White-hip was deserted by all but his 
next of kin, and became so poor that for a while a rope served him 
for a belt. 

But the blind man still had faith in his medicine and one day he 
thus invoked it: "His father has made me blind and miserable. 
I do not care if you can make him miserable too. He has three sons. 
Kill them all and make him live till his skin cracks from old age 
and force him to beg his food from strangers." 

Then on the next war party Big-dog's eldest son was slain by the 
Blackfoot; and people began to say that perhaps White-hip had 
not been conquered for good. And a year later his second eldest 



A Trial of Shamans 



43 



son died from sickness. Then the Crows all said it must be White- 
hip's work. And before the leaves had turned yellow, the shaman's 
last son was drowned in the Yellowstone. Then some said that, for 
all that, Big-dog had won, for he himself was well, while his enemy 
was blind. But others thought that White-hip, despite his blindness, 
had shown himself superior. 

And as years passed, Big-dog grew infirm. He outlived his 
nearest kin and those more remote till no clansfolk remained. He 
would wander about from lodge to lodge, feasting on what strangers 
offered him in sheer compassion. He would hear mothers whisper- 
ing to their children, "Big-dog was a great medicine man once and 
the whole tribe stood in awe of him, but White-hip had the greater 
medicine and laid him low." 

And just now White-hip had passed him with a taunt. He did 
not mind the blind fellow's mockery, but one thought troubled and 
racked him and would not let him sleep at night : "Whose medicine 
was really the greater? Who had won?" 

Robert H. Lowie 



Smoking-star, a Blackfoot Shaman 

IT was one evening in summer, the time of the long day, when the 
twilight is equally long, that I sat before the tepee fire of my host, 
Smoking-star. According to his own belief, he had seen the snows 
of nine times around his hands, or ninety years, as we count it. He 
was regarded as by far the oldest living Blackfoot, but his eye was 
bright and his memory good. That evening as we smoked in silence, 
I mused on the cross-section of man's history this venerable life 
would reveal, if it could be read. I told him how I felt, and my 
pleasure if he Would tell his story for me. He sat long and silently, 
as is the way of his people; then rose, and with great dignity, left 
the tepee Presently he returned and when seated, said, "The Smok- 
ing-star, Mars, is high. He shines approvingly. I have long lived 
by his power. I believe He will not be offended if I tell you the 

story of my life." 

So runs the tale of old Smoking-star as near as my memory can 

follow : 

My father's name was Old-beaver, chief of the Small-robe band, 
to which band I still belong. My mother came from the Fat- 
roasting band, she was the younger wife of my father, her older 
sister being the first, or head-wife. A child always calls each of 
his father's women mother and also all the women married to father s 
and mother's brothers; just why this is we do not know, but it is 
our way. My father was very kind to me, but my older mother 

was cross. . . . 

I suppose I was born in a small tepee set up outside, for such is 
the custom. Also I suppose that for a time my mother laid aside 
all ornaments and affected carelessness of person. If anyone should 
gaze at her, she would say, "Don't. My child will look like you; 
you are ugly etc." She was attended by women only, for men should 
not approach the birthplace. Even my father was not permitted to 
enter and it was many days before he saw me. In due time, I sup- 
pose I was strapped to a cradle board. Later, a name was conferred 



4 6 



American Indian Life 



upon me by my father, he being a chief. Unless a man is great, he 
does not name his child, but calls some man possessing these qualifica- 
tions. Having once captured two guns from the Cree, my father 
told the story of that deed, or coup, and named me Two-guns. It is 
the belief that the qualities of the namer and the name itself pass 
to the child ; hence great importance is given to the name and the 
conferring of it is a solemn occasion. The black-robe (priest) tells 
me it is much the same with your people. 

Also, I suppose that when I got my first tooth, my grandmothers 
reminded my parents that it was time to do something. So a feast 
was made, presents given, and prayers offered. This was, no doubt, 
repeated when I took my first step and when I learned to speak. 
But I do remember having my ears pierced. That is the first memory 
of childhood. I can still see a terrible looking old grandmother 
standing up before me, holding up a bone awl. I was never so 
frightened in my life. You have seen how it is done at the sun 
dance, where some old woman cries out, "I quilled a robe, all with 
these hands. So I have the power to do this." Just like a warrior 
recounting a coup. 

My real mother never reproved me, but when I began to run about, 
my older mother did not like to have me meddling with her things. 
Often she would make threats to me in a kind of song, as — "There 
is a coyote outside. Come coyote, and eat up this naughty baby." 
Again, "Come old Crooked-back woman; bring your meat pounder; 
smash this baby's head." The woman referred to was a crazy cripple 
who terrorized the children because some of them teased her. I 
was very much afraid, so that usually all my older mother need 
say was, "Sh-h-h!" and mumble something about the coyote or the 
woman. I have noticed that among your people, parents strike their 
children. That is not our way. If they will not listen to advice, 
an uncle may be called upon to exercise discipline and if necessary he 
will punish, but whipping is the way of the police societies. Once 
I saw the police whip a chief because he broke the rules of the buffalo 
hunt. 

Soon I began to play with the older boys; in winter we spun tops 
on the ice and in the snow, coasted the hills on toboggans made of 
buffalo ribs, or just stood up on a dry skin, holding up the end. In 
summer there were all kinds of games: racing, follow-the-leader, 



Smoking-Star, a Blackfoot Shaman 



47 



arrow games, the wheel game, etc. .1 had a hobby-horse, made of 
a bent stick, with a saddle and bridle, upon which I played running 
buffalo and going to war. I even learned to play tricks upon old 
people. Sometimes we would be playing where old women came 
to gather firewood and when one of them had a great heap of wood 
on her pack line, she would squat with her back against the wood, 
the lines in her hands, and call for us to help raise the load ; occasion- 
ally, we would assist until she reached her feet and then, with a 
quick push, send her sprawling with the wood on top. Then we 
would run away to escape a beating. Again, as water was carried 
in pails made of buffalo paunch, some boys would ambush the path 
and shoot an arrow into the pail, letting out the water. But usually 
we let older people alone, for, if caught, we were severely handled. 

When about six years old one of my grandfathers made me a bow; 
he prayed for me and said if I killed anything I should bring in the 
scalp to prove it. He told me the story of Scar-face and the danger- 
ous birds. Some time after this I killed a bird, my first, and my 
father made a feast, calling in many great men, who smoked many 
pipes, told of great deeds and predicted that I would be a great 
warrior. The skin of the bird was put into my grandfather's war 
bundle. 

When we traveled my mother carried me on her saddle or put me 
on a travois, hitched to a dog or some trusty old mare. But when 
I was old enough to ride alone, my father went on the war path to 
the Assiniboin country and brought back six horses; one pony he 
gave to me. Before I learned to ride it well, it was stolen by the 
Cree. At the same time my older mother was killed and scalped 
while out picking berries. All this made a deep impression upon me 
and I resolved to prepare for the war-path and to take vengeance 
on the Cree, particularly for the loss of my pony. In the meantime 
my father gave me another pony. 

One morning when I was about eleven years old, I was terribly 
frightened to find a man from a police society standing at the door, 
shouting for me to come out at once. It was cold and stormy, but 
he ordered me to the water for a plunge and when I stood on the bank 
whimpering, he threw me headlong into the icy current. The older 
boys were splashing about gaily, but it was hard for me. When I 
crept back to the tepee, shivering, my old grandmother began to sing 



48 American Indian Life 

a derisive song about a would-be warrior who turned to an old 
woman. After that I went daily to the bath and soon became hard 
and strong. 

The next summer our people were camped on Milk River where 
buffalo were plenty. The berries were just turning. One day while 
herding the horses I fell to eating berries and that night became ill. 
The next day I was very sick and a doctor was sent for. Old One- 
ear came, a man all of us feared, sat by my bed, beat upon a drum, 
sang in a loud voice, then turned down the robes that covered me, 
held a tube of bone against my breast and sucked violently. Then 
he arose and spat out a grasshopper. Everyone said that I would 
soon be well, and I was. But while I was too weak to go out, my 
grandfather came in and told me tales of the war-path and occasion- 
ally of the Lost Children, the Woman-who-went-to-the-sky, Morn- 
ingstar, Scar-face, Blood-clot, and other tales. I came to take a deep 
interest in these tales and to think more and more of going to war. 
When I could go out, my people were holding the sun dance and one 
evening I heard my father reciting his coups, putting on the fire 
a stick for each. At last when there was a great blaze from so 
much wood, the people all shouted. It was a proud moment for me 
and from then on I began to train for the war-path. 

Before cold weather our people separated, as was their custom, 
and our band, with the Fat-roasters and the Many-medicines, made 
winter camp on the Two Medicine River. It was a cold winter, 
but buffalo were plenty and we did not mind. In the spring my 
father led a war party against the Crow, I knew nothing of it 
until they had gone, but even had I known, he would not have 
taken me. I felt very sad and spent most of the time sitting on 
a hill, meditating. One day, on coming to camp I heard the women 
and even old men wailing. I saw my mother before our door hack- 
ing her bare leg with her butchering knife. Then I knew what had 
happened. The camp crier began to shout out that a runner had 
come in from a distant camp to say that Old-beaver and all his party 
had been killed by the Crows. When I met my old grandmother, 
with blood streaming down her bare arms, the sight sickened me and 
I fled to the hilltop and meditated further. As I thought of how 
coup had been counted on my father, my anger grew and I vowed 
to take a Crow, scalp at the first opportunity. 



Smoking-Star, a Blackfoot Shaman 



49 



Our camp mourned long after this. It was also necessary to 
select a new chief. One Good-runner was well thought of and was 
our choice, but an evil-minded fellow named Crow-eye sought the 
place. Finding that he was in disfavor, Crow-eye secretly loaded 
a gun, entered the tepee of Good-runner and shot him down. Crow- 
eye's relatives put him on a horse and sent him away for a few days, 
while they made presents to the relatives of Good-runner. Well, 
in the end Crow-eye became chief, but it was a sorry time for us all. 

As was the custom, my mother went to live with her people, or 
the Fat-roasting band. My mother's brother now took an interest 
in me. He gave me a gun. Guns were scarce in those days. My 
grandfather remembered when the first gun came to us and said 
that his father knew when the first horse came. I now spent much 
of my time with my uncle, though I still looked upon the Small-robes 
band as my band. He helped me to buy a place in the Pigeon Society 
and every spring and summer I danced with them and sometimes 
helped guard the camp at night when the great camp circle was 
formed. 

It was during the summer following my father's death that I 
was taken on my first buffalo hunt. Sometimes boys were severely 
whipped by the police if found joining in running buffalo before they 
were old enough. But now my uncle took me with him. As guns 
were scarce, we kept them for war, and killed buffalo with arrows. 
When we rode at the herd, I took after a young cow. She was very 
fleet, but at last I drew alongside and sent an arrow into her. When 
she fell I stood by in awe. My relations praised me and my mother 
tanned the skin to make a robe for me. I was now a hunter and 
always joined in the killing unchallenged. 

That autumn my mother ceased to mourn and married a man in 
the Lone-eaters band. After this I saw little of her, for they camped 
apart and I stayed with my uncle, but danced with my father's band, 
the Small-robes. About this time my uncle explained to me the 
ways of women and the duties of a man, so I began to look forward 
to having a woman of my own. I began to practice on the flageolet 
and to seek meetings with the girls of the camp on the path to the 
water hole; but I knew that though I had become a hunter, I had yet 
to go to war and to become a man. The opportunity soon came, for 
I was now about fourteen years old. 



50 



American Indian Life 



One day my uncle said, "Now it is time for you to go to war. 
When the moon is full, I shall lead a party to the Crow country. 
You can be the water boy." You know how it was with us, a boy 
might be taken to war to do errands. This is how he got his ex- 
perience. 

My uncle had a war bundle, or medicine, in which were a collar 
of coyote skin, a bird to tie in his hair, some tobacco, a pipe, paints, 
a whistle and a rattle. Every night we gathered in his tepee to sing 
the songs of his bundle and to work out the plan for our raid. At 
last, we were off, eight of us. Though still a boy, I was permitted 
to take my gun, my bow, and a knife. As we were leaving the tepee 
my old grandmother asked me not to go ; she took my hand and began 
to wail, but I pulled away. At the edge of the camp stood my 
uncle's father-in-law. He pled for all to return. Said he, "I have 
many horses, more than you can get from the Crow. Take what you 
want and stay at home. I am old and have not long to be with you." 
But we marched by in silence. 

Pranks are usually played upon a boy on his first war excursion. 
The first night one of the warriors said, "Take this pail and run down 
that path for water, it is far." I set out briskly only to step into a 
a deep pool of ill-smelling mud. About this I was teased, and all 
manner of jokes were made. Of course, the warriors knew the 
pool was there. They joked about my new paint, my new way of 
deceiving an enemy, my new perfume (love medicine), and so on. 
Finally one man in a very solemn manner conferred a new name 
upon me— Stinking-legs. From that time on, all of them called me 
by that name. 

But by the next night we were in the open country and there was 
little hilarity. My uncle opened his bundle and performed the 
ritual for it, all of us singing in a low subdued tone. After this we 
traveled mostly by night and slept by day, though the warriors took 
turns scouting. On the fourth day, a scout reported the enemy. 

"Now," said my uncle, "it is time to sing the 'tapping-the-stick.' ." 
So we all sat in a circle and my uncle began singing very softly, 
keeping time by tapping lightly on the stock of his gun with the end 
of his pipe-stick. He sang about a love affair and at the end named 
the woman. So it went around the circle. The last man, next to 
me, sang, and then named a young girl I was very fond of. Instinc- 



Smoking-Star, a Blackfoot Shaman 



5i 



tively, I grasped my knife, but then, Oh shame! I was not yet a war- 
rior, for here no one must resent. So I desisted, but I lay awake the 
rest of the day struggling with my anger. This was all very foolish, 
for the man was only teasing me; yet few men would venture to jest 
in such songs. 

That night we stole out and found the Crow camp unguarded. 
So we took all the loose horses grazing outside and made off with 
them. Not even a dog barked. When at a safe distance my uncle 
told us to follow a warrior named Running-crane, that he and one 
man were going back to get scalps to pay for my father's death, that 
they would join us at the rendezvous later. My uncle was accom- 
panied by the man who sang about my girl. On the third day my 
uncle overtook us, but he was alone. What became of his companion 
he knew not; he was never seen after they separated to steal into 
the Crow camp. That was what came of jesting with medicine 
songs. All holy things must be respected. But my uncle had 
brought a scalp, a shield, and a gun. So we were happy. 

When we got home there was feasting and scalp dancing for all. 
Finally, my old grandmother drew me out into full view, harangued 
the crowd upon my greatness as a warrior and said, "Now you must 
have been given a new name. What is it?" I hung my head for 
shame, "Oh!" she said, "my grandson is modest." 

Then my uncle came forward and told the story of the mud hole 
and called me, "Stinking-legs." Then merriment broke loose and 
for a long time I was teased about it. 

Two of the captured horses were allotted to me: one I gave to my 
grandfather. Not long after my uncle told me it was time to seek 
power. This meant that I must fast and sacrifice, seeking a vision. 
So I took my other Crow horse to old Medicine-bear, a shaman, 
offered him a pipe, and made my request. My instruction took many 
weeks. I was introduced to the sweat house and other ceremonies, 
learned how to make the pipe offering, to cry for power, and so forth. 
At last all was ready and old Medicine-bear left me alone on a high 
hill to fast, dance, and pray. Each evening and morning he came 
and, standing afar off, exhorted me to greater efforts. By the third 
day I was too exhausted to stand. That night I lay on my back look- 
ing up at the sky. Then I saw the Smoking-star. a And as I gazed 

1 Meaning: "the star who smoked my pipe." 



52 



American Indian Life 



it came nearer and nearer. Then I heard a voice, "My son, why do 
you cry here?" Then I saw a fine warrior sitting on the ground be- 
fore me, smoking my pipe. At last he said, "I will give you power. 
You are to take my name. You must never change it. Always pray 
to me and I will help you." 

The next morning when old Medicine-bear came and stood afar 
off I said, "Something has been given me." Then he prayed and 
took me home. In due time he heard my story, composed a song for 
me, gave me a small medicine bundle and announced my new name. 
I was now a man of power. Many young men offered to go to war 
with me, so I soon began to lead out parties. Many coups I counted 
as the years passed, but all came by the power of the Smoking-star. 
Only once did this power seem to fail me on the war-path. I was 
alone and surrounded by the Cree. At last I called upon the Sun, 
offering to give him my little finger. Then I overcame my enemies. 
So at the next sun dance I chopped off this finger (the left) and 
offered it to the sun to fulfil my vow. But this belongs to the second 
period in my life, of which I shall speak later. 

Shortly after I saw the Smoking-star, I took a woman. My uncle 
and my grandparents had often hinted of marriage. I was particu- 
larly fond of a girl in the Small-robe band, but could not court her 
openly because that was my band by right of my father, though I 
lived with the band of my mother, the Fat-roasters. It is not good 
for a man to marry in his own band where most of his relatives live, 
but he can freely marry a woman of his mother's band, if not too 
closely related to her. I could have joined my mother's band, as my 
uncle urged, and then married the girl, but that seemed to me like 
evading my duty to uphold the honor of my father and to take re- 
venge for his untimely death. People would talk about it. So I 
courted a girl in my mother's band. As she was not closely related to 
me, there was no hindrance. Our courtship was secret, as is often the 
custom ; when I led out my first war party she slyly passed me a pair 
of moccasins. I think no one knew of our attachment. You see my 
mother's people all looked upon me as one of their band, though they 
should not have done so, and so looked elsewhere for my future 
woman. Long afterward I learned that they had picked a woman 
for me from the Blood band, the widow of a young warrior, a good 
woman some ten years older than I, but it turned out otherwise. 



Smoking-Star, a Blackfoot Shaman 



53 



The girl I courted was named Elk-woman. She and I were near- 
ing twenty and it was time for her to marry, past time in fact. So 
her relatives arranged to give her to a man of the They-don't-laugh- 
band. The relatives of both parties had feasted and talked over the 
affair and were about ready to exchange the first presents, when Elk- 
woman's relatives first suggested the marriage to her. She asked for 
time to think it over. That evening when I met her as usual in a 
secret place, she told me the story and cried. Such a marriage was 
repugnant to her. I knew the man and had already come to dislike 
him. So that night we ran away. I took my horse, gun, and bow. 
We rode double. We went far up into the foothills of the mountains 
and made a secret camp. 

Some two weeks later my uncle trailed us and we had a talk. He 
said I had done a very foolish thing; that all of my woman's relatives 
were angry and that the prospective husband vowed vengeance. 
However, as he had himself made the man a present of a horse and 
smoked a pipe with him, his anger was waning. He thought that 
since I had always adhered to my father's band I should go there to 
live. Anyway my father's people would then protect me. In due 
time presents could be made to my parents-in-law. You see when 
a man takes a woman, he is required to give many presents to her 
parents; this is called paying for her. So, I had stolen my woman 
because nothing had been paid. This would always stand against 
me in the minds of the people. 

The next day we went back to my father's band. A poor old 
woman, an aunt of my father, one of my grandmothers, as we say, 
took us in as we had no tepee. No one seemed to take notice of us. 
When I hunted I took some of the meat and left it by the door of 
my father-in-law, as was the custom. Finally, my uncle's relatives 
got together and collected six horses, a few robes, a warrior's suit, 
and a great lot of dried meat. In solemn procession they paraded 
over to the camp of my parents-in-law. Then followed a feast and 
a reconciliation. 

Not long after this I happened to meet my mother-in-law in a 
path. No one must see the face of his mother-in-law; if he does 
he must make her a present to cover her shame. This accident cost 
me my gun. It was a grievous loss as we were still poor. My 
woman had not so much as a travois-dog to bring wood. 



54 American Indian Life 

At this point the narrator paused and began to fill his pipe. Pres- 
ently he said, "The Smoking-star is still overhead. We have reached 
the fork of the first trail ; the boy becomes a hunter, goes to war, 
has a vision, he joins the Pigeons, then marries and takes his place 
among the men of his band. So far he travels but one trail. Thence- 
forth it is different with us, some become warriors, some medicine 
men, some are chiefs. It is well that we rest here a little while, 
before I go on." 
When the pipe was burned out the story began thus: — 
Some time before I was married I bought into the Mosquito society 
when they sold out to the Pigeons. It was this way with us : There 
were nine societies for men, of different rank as follows; Mosquitoes, 
Braves, All-brave-dogs, Front-tails, Raven-bearers, Dogs, Kit-foxes, 
Catchers, and Bulls. Lower than all was a boy's society, the Pigeons. 
To enter these societies you first bought into the Pigeons; that is, 
you gave presents to an older member who in return transferred his 
membership to you. Every four years each of the nine men's soci- 
eties sold to the next lower; so one might finally, if he lived to be an 
old man, become a member of the Bulls. These societies were 
spoken of as the All-comrades. Each had its own songs, dances, re- 
galia, and ritual. When the whole tribe came together for the sum- 
mer hunt and the sun dance, these societies were called upon to guard 
and police the camp. Their parades and dances through the camp 
were very impressive. As all the members of a society were near the 
same age, these organizations are often called age-societies by the 
white people. 

In time I passed through all of the societies and became a Bull. 
When in the Raven-bearers we gave a dance at a trading post where 
Fort Benton now stands and two strange white men watched us. One 
of them drew a picture of us and afterwards the older man asked 
questions of me through an interpreter and wrote something in a 
book. I heard that he came from across the great water as did the 
first white people, but I never saw him again. 1 

iln 1832 a post was founded near the present site of Fort Benton, Montana, known as Fort 
Mackenzie. In 1833 it was visited by the famous German traveler, Maximilian, Prince of 
Wied, accompanied by the artist, Charles Bodmer. Maximilian gives us an interesting and 
detailed account of his travels in the Missouri country and is the first to give us good infor- 
mation as to the culture of the Blackfoot. See his Travels in the Interior of North America, 
translated by H. E. Lloyd, Cleveland, 1906. 



Smoking-Star, a Blackfoot Shaman 



55 



When with my comrades in the Bulls we sold out to the Catchers, 
I became one of the old men to sit in council and advise the people. 
There are two leaders for each society. I was never a leader, because 
the leaders of one always sold to the leaders of the lower, and it so 
happened during my life that the same two men lived to reach the 
Bulls. So there was no chance for anyone else to lead. But we 
are now far ahead of my story, I must begin with my life as one of 
the young married men. 

After I came back with my woman to live in my band, old 
Medicine-bear often sat in our tepee. (My woman soon tanned 
skins from my hunting and made a large fine tepee of our own.) He 
wished me to become a shaman like himself. You see I had ex- 
perienced a real vision, few men who fasted received such power as 
came to me. I had the power to become a shaman, but I held to 
my vow to be a warrior. I was poor. So I led war parties against 
the Cree, Assiniboin, Snake, and Crow. M'any horses and guns I 
took. Coups I counted and took three scalps from the Crow. But 
I meditated often upon the powers in the air, water, and earth. 
They are the great mysteries. Everything is done by them. About 
this time two things happened to me that turned my thoughts from 
war. 

Our chief led a party against the Cree and invited me to go. The 
chief was jealous of me. As I told you, he was a bad man, but I 
could not refuse. Medicine-bear, the shaman, went with us to give 
us power. When we reached the Cree country I was ordered out 
as a scout. It was dark. As I went along I saw a tepee all by 
itself. I went up to it quietly and looked in. There was no one 
in the tepee except a man, his wife, and a little child. The little 
child could just walk and was amusing itself by dipping soup from 
the kettle with a small horn spoon. The man and his wife were busy 
talking and paid no attention to the child. Now the child looked 
up and saw me peeping through the hole, toddled over to the kettle, 
dipped up some soup in the spoon and held it to my lips. I drank 
and the child returned to the kettle for more. In this way the child 
fed me for many minutes. Then I went away. As I went along 
to my own party, I thought to myself, "I do not like to do this, but 
I must tell my party about this tepee. When they know of it, they 
will come and kill these people. This little child fed me even when 



56 American Indian Life 

I was spying upon them, and I do not like to have it killed. Well, 
perhaps I can save the child; but then it would be too bad for it to 
lose its parents. No, I do not see how I can save them, yet I cannot 
bear to have them killed." I sat down and thought it over. After a 
while, I went back to the tepee, went in, and sat down. While my host 
was preparing the pipe, the child began to feed me again with the 
spoon. After we had smoked, I talked to the man in the sign-lan- 
guage, told him all about it, how I had come as a scout to spy upon 
them, how I was about to bring up my war party, but that they had 
been saved by the little child. Then I directed the man to go at once, 
leaving everything behind him in the tepee. 

The man was very thankful and offered to give me a medicine 
bundle and a suit of clothes; but I refused, because I knew that my 
party would suspect me. Then the man suggested that he might 
place the bundle near the door, behind the bedding, so that when the 
war party came up and dashed upon the tepee, I would be the first to 
capture the bundle. (All the important property of the tepee is al- 
ways kept at the back, opposite the door, and, when a war party 
rushes in, the swiftest runs to this place.) 

Then I reported to my chief, telling him that I had discovered a 
camp of the enemy but that I had not been up to it or seen anyone. 
He started out at once, all of us following. When we had sur- 
rounded the tepee, we gave a whoop and rushed upon it. I kept be- 
hind and while the others were busy counting coup upon the things 
in the back of the tepee, I seized the bundle by the door. The chief 
was angry, but said nothing. When we were again in camp old 
Medicine-bear began to unwrap his war medicine-pipe to make a 
thank offering for our success. Then the chief faced me and de- 
nounced me as a traitor, accused me of warning the enemy and se- 
creting the medicine bundle. My anger rose, I drew my knife, but 
at that moment old Medicine-bear sprang between us, holding the 
holy pipe in both hands. This is the custom, no one can fight over a 
holy pipe. The shaman made us each take the pipe and vow to put 
away our anger and hold our silence. So it was. 

Never have I forgotten that little child. Some great power was 
guarding it. Its medicine was strong. Many times have I prayed 
To that power and sometimes it helped me, but I do not yet know 



Smoking-Star, a Blackfoot Shaman 



57 



what power it is. Yet somehow I took little interest in war, the 
child's medicine did that to me. 

The next year I felt sad and gloomy. So I decided to go to war 
anyway. I led out a party of my own against the Crow. The fourth 
night I went out to scout. It was cloudy and rather dark. As I was 
stealing along a marshy place, a star rose out of the earth and stood 
before me. It was the Smoking-star. Something in me said, ''Fol- 
low." Then the star led off slowly; gradually it took me to the back 
trail and then swiftly faded away, as it moved toward my woman's 
tepee at home. I sat down and prayed. In my mind the Smoking- 
star was telling me to go back. 

When dawn came I returned to my party. I told my story. All 
agreed that we should go home for the signs were against us. When 
I got into our camp I saw many people standing about my woman's 
tepee and heard a doctor's drum. My son, my first born, was very ill. 
Three doctors had been called, one after the other. I gave them all 
my horses. As is their way, when they feared the sick one would 
die, they departed. At last, I went out to the top of a hill to cry to 
the Smoking-star. Surely, I thought, he would help me, but clouds 
overcast the sky and there was no answer to my appeal. That morn- 
ing the boy died. 

In the afternoon the body was wrapped in a robe and placed in a 
tree near our camp. As he died in the tepee, we could not use it 
again so we placed it at the foot of the tree. I cropped my hair and 
mourned many days. Now I was poor. All my horses went to the 
doctors. My woman's tepee was gone and once again we lived with 
our poor old grandmother in her little ragged tepee; but in a few 
days my woman's relatives gave her another tepee and after a time 
we again accumulated horses. 

About this time Medicine-bear became a beaver bundle owner. 
My misfortunes turned my mind more and more to the mysteries of 
the powers around us and I began to learn the songs and the teachings 
of the beaver men. The ritual for the beaver bundle is long and diffi- 
cult. There are more than three hundred songs to be learned before 
one can lead the ceremony of the beaver. In the bundle are the skins 
of beavers, otters, and many kinds of birds and water animals. With 
each of these there are songs, for each brought some power to the man 



58 American Indian Life 

who first saw it in a vision. My people did not plant corn, as did the 
Mud-houses (Mandan and Hidatsa), but the beaver men planted 
tobacco. At the planting and the gathering of the tobacco, the 
beaver bundle is opened and the ritual sung. The garden and the 
plants are sacred, for tobacco must be offered to all the powers of the 
earth, and of the water. A beaver man must keep count of the days, 
the moons, and the winters. For this he keeps a set of sticks like 
those sometimes found in a beaver's house. At all times he must be 
ready to tell the moon and the day; he must say when it is time to go 
on the spring hunt, to hold the sun dance, etc. Then he must watch 
the sun, moon, stars, winds, and clouds so that he may know what the 
weather will be. If he is holy and good, he will have visions and 
dreams of power and so become a shaman. 

So after my son died I often sat with the beaver men. In time I 
learned many of the beaver songs and became chief assistant to Med- 
icine-bear in the ceremonies. When I was an old man, Medicine- 
bear died; it was the year before I sold out of the Bull society (the 
year we saw the first steamboat) . Then I became the leading beaver 
man, as I am still. 

When I first began to study the beaver medicine, I spent hours on 
the hilltops and near the waters, meditating and watching the birds, 
animals, and the heavens. Yet such solemn thoughts did not occupy 
all my time as a young married man. 

There was much sport in the winter camps. Many men played 
the wheel and arrow game and again the hand game. These were the 
favorite gambling games. The first was for two players, but the lat- 
ter permitted team playing. Some men gambled away all their be- 
longings ana even their women. I never went so far. Once I re- 
member two young men played the wheel game until one lost all his 
possessions except his moccasins and his breechcloth, finally losing 
these, to the great merriment of the whole camp. 

My band had a great reputation for jokes. In this I was a leader. 
Once in the spring we fooled a man named Bow-string. This man 
had a favorite race horse which he guarded very carefully, picketing 
him outside his tepee. One day I dressed myself to look like a Crow, 
and while Bow-string was inside playing the hand game, untied his 
horse and led him off up the hills across the creek. Then a confede- 



Smoking-Star, a Blackfoot Shaman 59 

rate gave the alarm. All ran out to see a Crow going off with the 
horse in broad day. Of course, everyone knew the trick, but Bow- 
string. Care had been taken to send all the other horses of the camp 
out to pasture with a herder. So Bow-string took a gun and set out 
with a pursuing party, afoot. Everybody in camp appeared to be 
greatly frightened, women screamed, and all the dogs began to bark. 
As the supposed Crow, I sprang upon the horse, waved a defiance and 
dashed over the hill. 

Once out of sight I rode quickly around the hills and got back to 
camp after the pursuers had passed over the ridge. After a fruitless 
search for the trail, the party came back, Bow-string looking very 
sad. But there stood his horse tied as before ! Then there was great 
uproar and jesting. 

A favorite trick of mine was often played upon visiting strangers, 
especially upon dignified old men. I would invite the guest to my 
tepee to feast with a few of my friends. Then I would pretend to 
quarrel with my woman and we would fall to fighting. The others 
would try to separate us and so all begin to struggle, taking care to 
fall upon and thoroughly muss up the puzzled visitor. 

Our people were fond of liquor, which could be had when we went 
to the trading posts in summer. At such times there was much fight- 
ing. We all wanted liquor because we believed that some myste- 
rious power could be had in that way. Some men had visions while 
drunk, that made them shamans or "doctors according to the powers 
that were given them. Sometimes I drank liquor too. Once when 
my woman was drunk also, we quarreled and I threatened to toma- 
hawk her smallest child, but she snatched a burning stick from the 
fire and thrust the glowing end against my neck; you see the scar. 
After that I did not drink much. I was glad when the Great Fa- 
ther stopped the trading of liquor, it did us much harm. 

Once a year in summer all the bands of our tribe camped together. 
A great circle of tepees was formed and the societies had charge of 
the camp. At this time the sun dance was held. It was very sacred 
and lasted many days. No man was wise enough to know how all 
parts of it were conducted, so many medicine men were needed for 
the different rituals. Some men would vow to torture themselves at 
this time. I once gave a finger to the sun, but that is not the real sac- 



6o 



American Indian Life 



rifice. Those who made the vow have holes cut in the skin of their 
breasts and shoulders, through which sticks are thrust and cords at- 
tached. The ends of these cords are fastened to the center pole in 
the sun-dance lodge, where these devotees dance and cry for power 
until they tear themselves free or fall in a swoon: I never 
made this sacrifice. I was afraid, for it is very holy. Yet many 
times have I given bits of my skin to Natos (the sun) as the scars 
upon my body show. These were not given in the sun dance, but 
when I was fasting alone in the hills. 

A good and virtuous woman may often save the lives of her rela- 
tives by making a vow to take the tongues at the sun dance. My wo- 
man did this in the year known as "Gambler-died- winter" (about 
1845, according to most tribal counts). Her brother was about to 
die. So she went outside, looked up at the sun, and said, "I will take 
the tongue at the sun dance." Her brother got well. If she had not 
been a pure and good woman, he would have died. In due time old 
Medicine-bear, the beaver bundle man, was given a horse and called 
in to prepare her for the ordeal. During the spring a hundred 
buffalo tongues were sliced and dried. Only true women are permit- 
led to slice them. If a woman cuts her finger or cuts a hole in her 
slice, she is turned out because she has not been true to her husband. 
At the proper time in the sun dance, as the sun is setting, the women 
who have vowed to take the tongues go forward and in turn, take up 
a piece of tongue and holding it up to the sun, declare their purity. 
It is the duty of any man, who knows the claim to be false to come 
forward with a challenge. My woman was not challenged. Every- 
one knew her to be pure and good. 

Once she was the holy woman to give the sun dance. It was in the 
deep snow winter (about 1851) that she became ill. Many people 
were starving, for the buffalo had drifted far before the snowstorms. 
Then my woman addressed the sun, saying that she would give the 
sun dance, next year. Soon the people found buffalo and she got 
well. 

A woman cannot give the sun dance alone, her man must also be 
good and brave. Both must fast four days and sit in the holy tepee. 
The holy natoas bundle must be opened and the woman wear its sa- 
cred headdress, with the prairie turnip and carry the digging-stick 
used by the Woman-who-married-a-star. That winter we were 



Smoking-Star, a Blackfoot Shaman 61 

camped on the Missouri. The following summer we went to Yel- 
low River to give the sun dance. 

Now, it is our way, that the woman who vows to give the sun dance 
must buy a natoas bundle. The power and right to the ritual thus 
come to her. For this, many horses, robes, and dried meat must be 
given. When we came to bring our bundle all the people of our 
band and our relatives in other bands were called upon to help us by 
gifts. After the sun dance we kept the natoas bundle in our tepee and 
cared for it as the ritual required. My woman was now a medicine 
woman. She did not sell her bundle. In the Blood-fought-among- 
themselves winter she died (about 1858). I put the bundle in her 
robe, set up her tepee on a high hill and left her there. That is our 
custom. 

She was a good and true woman. After that I went to live with 
my son, as you now see. I never took another woman because the 
Smoking-star appeared to me in a dream and forbade it. 

In the course of time everyone came to look upon me as a shaman. 
No one will now walk before me as I sit in a tepee. In my presence 
all are dignified and orderly and avoid frivolous talk. Four times in 
my life the Smoking-Star has stood before me. All visions are sa- 
cred, as are some dreams, but when a vision appears the fourth time, it 
is very holy. Even a shaman may not speak of it freely. Many 
times have I gone to lonely places and cried out to the powers of the 
air, the earth, and the waters to help me understand their ways. 
Sometimes they have answered me, but all the truly great mysteries 
are beyond understanding. 

In the year of the Camp-at-bad-waters-winter the Bull society 
sold out as I have said. That was the end of that society ; there were 
but three of us left when we sold to the Catchers and those to whom 
we sold soon died. The ways of the white man were coming among 
us and many things were passing away. I was now an old man, fit 
only for sitting in council. I could no longer run buffalo, no longer 
go to war. So we have come to the last fork in the trail. I have 
smoked many pipes. I have sat in many councils, I have made many 
speeches to restrain our young men from rash and unjust actions. 
We are near the end. The Smoking-star will soon pass down in the 
west. Soon it will lead me to the sand hills where my spirit will 
wander about among the ghosts of buffalo, horses, and men. Your 



62 



American Indian Life 



way is not our way, but you have loved us. Perhaps your spirit also 
may return to wander with us among the sand hills of our fathers. I 
pray that it may be so. Now, it is finished. 

Thoughtfully I left that fireside to find my blankets. As I passed 
out through the night, I saw the "Smoking-star" sinking in the west. 
It shone to me with a new- light. The next winter my old friend 
passed into the beyond. His body was laid on a tree scaffold near the 
favorite haunts of his band on Two Medicine River. 

Clark Wissler 



M 



M ? M 




LITTLE VOLF JOINS 
THE MEDICINE LODGE 



+ 

inn 




Little-wolf Joins the Medicine Lodge 



i 

IN THE LODGE OF THE MASTER 

MATCIKINEU, Terrible-eagle, sat dozing in the dusk in his round, 
rush-mat wigwam. The fire smouldered, but random drafts, slip- 
ping in through the swinging mat that covered the door, encouraged 
little dancing flames to spring up, and these illumined the far in- 
terior of the lodge, so that it was possible to observe its furnishings 
down to the mustiest cranny. 

Around the inner circumference of the wigwam, ran a broad 
rustic bench, supported by forked sticks and thickly strewn balsam 
boughs on which lay bearskin robes. The inner wall of the home 
was hung with woven reed mats, bearing designs in color, of angular 
figures and conventional floral motifs. Over Terrible-eagle's head, 
on smoke encrusted poles, swung several mat-covered, oval bundles, 
festooned with age-blackened gourd rattles, war clubs, and utensils 
and weapons of unusual portent. These were his sacred war and 
hunting bundles, packets of charms whose use and accompanying 
formulae he had obtained personally from the Gods, while fasting, 
or purchased at a great price from others more fortunate than he. 
For Terrible-eagle was a renowned war leader, a hunter, and the 
greatest of all Mate Mitawuk, Masters of the Grand Medicine 
Society, a secret fraternal and medical organization, to which, in 
one form or another, nearly every Indian of influence in all the 
Great Lakes and Central Western region belonged. 

The door covering was quietly thrust aside and Anam, a wolf- 
like dog, trotted in to curl up by the fire, while after him, first 
dropping a load of faggots from her shoulders, stumbled Wabano- 
mitamu, Dawn-woman, wife of Terrible-eagle, who crouched down 
grumbling to enter the lodge, and turned on her time-gnarled knees 
to drag the kindlings in after her. 

Roused by the noise, Terrible-eagle stretched and yawned, then 
reached over his head and took down a calabash-shell rattle, which 
he began to shake gently, while Dawn-woman shoved aside the 

63 



64 American Indian Life 

birch-bark boxes that cluttered the floor, stirred up the fire in the 
round, shallow pit where it was glowing, and set among the hot 
embers a large, round, deep, pointed-bottomed kettle of brown 
earthen-ware, the base of which she screwed into the ashes by a 
quick, circular twist of the rim. Into this kettle she poured some 
water from a birch-bark pail; and, when it began to simmer, added 
a quantity of wild rice, smoked meat, and dried berries, which she 
stirred with an elaborate wooden-spoon paddle. 

The random swish of Terrible-eagle's rattle now began to articu- 
late itself in the form of a tune, the motif of which might have been 
borrowed from the night babblings and murmurings of a wood- 
land brook. It rose like the prattle of water racing down stony 
riffles; it fell to the purring monotone of a little fall burbling into 
a deep pool. 

Then, suddenly, Terrible-eagle raised his voice in song— a song 
without meaning to the uninitiated— yet a song potent with the 
powers of Manitous, and ancient as the pine forests. 

"Ni manituk, hawatukuk, ke'neaminum." 
"You, my gods, I am singing to you!" 

"Look you, old fellow," cried Dawn-woman, squatting beside 
her cooking, "why do you sing that sacred song? There is no need 
to rehearse the chants of the Manitous when ice binds the rivers, 
and snow blankets the land! When new life dawns with the grass 
blades in the spring, then we will need to refresh our memories; 
not now, while the gods sleep like bears." 

"Silence, old partner! You do not know everything! Even now 
there comes one seeking the knowledge of the path our brethren 
and fellows have trod before us. Listen!" 

The lodge was hushed with the heavy silence of the Wisconsin 
forest in midwinter. Then came the crunch and squeak of ap- 
proaching snowshoes slipping over the crusted drifts. 

"N'hau, Dawn-woman! Prepare the guest place, spread robes 
behind the fire, dish out a bowl of soup! Some one of our people 
desires to enter!" 

The noise ceased before the doorway, and Terrible-eagle, now 
hunched before the fire, paused before dropping a hot coal on the 
tobacco in his red stone pipe, to bid the guest to enter. "Yoh!" 
came the hearty response, and a tall, dark warrior, bareheaded save 



Little-wolf Joins the Medicine Lodge 65 



for a fillet of otter fur around his brows, ducked under the doorway 
and silently passed round the fire, on the left, to the guest place, 
where he seated himself, cross-legged, on a pile of robes. He was 
clad in a plain shirt of blue-dyed deerskin, deeply fringed on the 
seam?, in flapping, leather leggings, high soft-soled moccasins, and a 
leather apron handsomely embroidered with colored porcupine 
quills wrought in delicate, flowered figures. He bore no weapon, 
and on his swarthy cheeks two round spots of red paint were seen 
in the firelight. 

After the newcomer had eaten a bowl of steaming stew with the 
aid of a huge, wooden ladle, he lay back among the robes, puffing 
comfortably on a long-stemmed pipe with bowl of red stone, 
filled and lighted for him by the old man. As the cheerful odor 
of tobacco and kinnikinick permeated the lodge, the stranger began 
to speak. He informed the old people that his name was Muhwase, 
Little-wolf, of the Wave clan of the Menomini, that he had come 
all the way from Mate Suamako, the Great Sand Bar village on the 
Green Bay of Lake Michigan; that the young men had opened their 
war bundles, and danced preparatory to going to war against the 
Sauk, but that the Sauk had heard the news and fled southward. 
He ended with all the gossip and tittle-tattle of his band. 

It was not until Dawn-woman slept, and the stars were visible 
in the winter sky through the smoke hole of the lodge, that Little- 
wolf went out abruptly, and returned bearing a huge bundle which 
he dumped on the floor at the feet of Terrible-eagle, and silently 
took his place on the lounge once more. 

With trembling hands the old man undid the leathern thongs 
and unwrapped the bearskin with which the bundle was enclosed, 
and spread before him an array of articles that brought an avari- 
cious sparkle to his red-rimmed eyes. 

"Nima, nekan! Well done, my colleague !" he exclaimed. 
"These are valuable gifts, and in the proper number. Four hatchets, 
four spears, and four knives of the sacred yellow rock (native 
copper), four belts of white wampum, and four garments of tanned 
deerskin, embroidered with quillwork, with much tobacco. Surely 
this gift has a meaning? 1 ' 

"Grandfather! You to whom nothing is hard," replied the 
visitor. "It is true that I am nobody. I am poor — the enemy 



66 American Indian Life 

scarcely know my name. Yet I am desirous of eating the food of 
the Medicine Lodge, as all the brethren have done who have passed 
this way before me!" 

"N'hau, my grandson! I shall call together the three other 
Pushwawuk, or masters, for their consent. What you have asked 
for, may seem as nothing to you — yet it is Life. These songs' may 
appear to partake of the ways of children — yet they are powerful. 
I understand you well; you desire to imitate the ways of our own 
ancient Grand Master, Ma'nabus, who was slain and brought to 
life that we might gain life unending! Good! You have done 
well. In the morning I shall send invitation-sticks and tobacco to 
summon the leaders here, that your instruction may begin at once!" 

II 

THE INSTRUCTION 

It was an hour after sunset. In the rear of the lodge sat Terrible- 
eagle and three other old men, with Little-wolf at their left. Be- 
fore them lay the pile of valuable gifts, and, on the white-tanned 
skin of an unborn fawn, stood the sacred towaka or deep drum, 
hollowed by infinite labor from a short section of a basswood log, 
holding two fingers' depth of water to make its voice resonant, and 
covered with a dampened membrane of tanned, buck hide. Across 
its head was balanced a crooked drumstick, its striking end carved 
to represent a loon's beak. Before the drum, was placed a wooden 
bowl in the shape of a minature, log canoe heaped with tobacco, 
and four gourd rattles with wooden handles which shone from age 
and usage. A youth tended the fire and kept the air redolent with 
incense of burning sweet grass and cedar. Dawn-woman and Anam, 
the dog, guarded the door. 

Extending his hands over the sacred articles before them, Terrible- 
eagle began a prayer of invocation, calling on the mythical hero 
and founder of the Medicine Lodge, Ma'nabus, on the Great Spirit, 
the Sun, and the Thunderbirds ; on the good-god Powers or Manitous 
of air and earth, and also upon the Evil Powers who dwell in and 
under the earth and water and hidden in the dismal places of the 
world, to appear in spirit and accept the tobacco offered them and 
to dedicate the fees presented to the instructors. 



Little-wolf Joins the Medicine Lodge 67 



When the prayer was ended, all those gathered in the wigwam 
ejaculated "Hau," and three of the elders smoked and listened while 
Terrible-eagle began the instruction by relating the history of the 
origin of the Medicine Lodge. Taking the drumstick in his hand, 
Terrible-eagle gave four distinct strokes on the drum, and recited 
in a rhythmic and solemn tone, hushing his voice to a whisper when 
it became necessary to mention a great Power by name. 

He told how Mate Hawatuk, the Great Spirit, sat alone in the 
heavenly void above the ever extending sea, and willed that an island 
(the world) should appear there; how he further willed that there 
should spring up upon this island, an old woman who was known 
as "Our Grandmother, The Earth." He recited how the Earth 
Grandmother conceived, supernaturally, and gave birth to a 
daughter. How the Four winds, desiring to be born as men, entered 
the daughter's body and lay as twins in her womb, and how, when 
the hour of their birth came, so great was their power, they burst 
their mother, making women forever after liable to death in travail. 

"Then," related Terrible-eagle, "our Earth Grandmother gathered 
up the shattered pieces of her daughter, and placed them under an 
inverted, wooden bowl, and prayed, and on the fourth day, through 
the pity of the Great Spirit, the fragments were changed into a little 
rabbit, who was named Mate Wabus, or the Great Hare, since 
corrupted into 'Ma'nabus,' who was to prepare the world for human 
habitation. 

"The rabbit grew, in human form, to man's estate, when he was 
given, as a companion and younger brother, a little wolf, but the 
Powers Below, being jealous, slew the wolf brother. Then, Ma'na- 
bus in his wrath attacked the Powers below, and, as he was the child 
of the Great Spirit, they could not resist him. In fear the Evil 
Powers restored his younger brother to life, but, since he had been 
dead four days, the flesh dropped from his bones and he stank, and 
Ma'nabus, in sorrow, refused to receive him, and sent him to rule 
the dead in the After World, at the end of the Milky Way in the 
Western Heavens. Hence, human beings may not come back to 
life on the fourth day. 

"At their wits' end to appease Ma'nabus, the Evil Ones called 
on the Powers Above who are of good portent. They erected a 
Medicine Lodge on the high hilltops, oblong, rectangular, facing 
east and west. The Power of the Winds roofed it with blue sky and 



68 



American Indian Life 



white clouds. The pole framework was bound with living, hissing 
serpents instead of basswood strings, the food for feasting was 
seasoned with a pinch of the blue sky itself. Then the Powers 
entered. The gods of Evil took the north side where darkness and 
cold abide ; the Good Powers Above sat on the south. Then they all 
stripped off the animal natures with which they were disguised, 
and hung them on the wall of the Lodge, and all appeared in their 
true forms, as aged persons. 

'Tn council, guided by the admonitions of the Great Spirit, they 
decided to give to Ma'nabus the ritual of the Lodge, with its secret — 
long life and immortality for mankind — as a bribe to cease his moles- 
tation. But Ma'nabus refused to receive their message, until Otter 
volunteered to fetch him. Then Ma'nabus came, and was duly in- 
structed and raised, by being slain and brought to life again, thus 
showing the great potency of the Powers who owned the Lodge. 

"This very ceremony, just as it was given Ma'nabus, and later 
transferred to us, his uncles and aunts, with its rites, formulas, and 
medicines, is the same," concluded Terrible-eagle, "as we perform 
to-day, as all the brethren and fellows have done who have passed 
this way before us, since the Menomini came out of the ground, in 
the past." As he ended the old man struck the drum four times, 
crying, "My colleagues, my colleagues, my colleagues, my col- 
leagues!" 

When Terrible-eagle had concluded his part, there was a recess 
for refreshment and relaxation, which lasted until each had smoked, 
then another old pushwao or master took up the work. He it was 
who related to the candidate the identity of the Powers Above and 
Below who had given the Medicine Lodge to mankind, through Ma'- 
nabus. There were, he said, four groups of Evil Powers, who sat 
on the north side of the Lodge. First were the Otter, Mink, Marten, 
and Weasel; second the Bear, Panther, Wolf, and Horned Owl; 
third the Banded Rattlesnake, the little Prairie Rattlesnake, the 
Pine Snake, and the Hog-nosed Snake. The fourth group was 
composed of lesser birds and beasts. The Upper World which had 
not offended Ma'nabus, was not so well represented, and was com- 
posed of various predatory birds, such as the Red-shouldered Hawk 
and the Sparrow-hawks. These sat on the south side, and, in ancient 
days, human Lodge members had been seated according to the nature 
of their medicine bags. 



Little-wolf Joins the Medicine Lodge 69 



The skins of any of these animals might be used as containers 
or sacks for the secret nostrums of the craft, but the Dog and Fox, 
which were formerly associated with the Wolf, had, by their cun- 
ning and their custom of eating filth and carrion, become too 
closely associated with witchcraft, and were now tabu. 

The old master then told the candidates that each of these animals 
had donated some special power to aid mankind. Thus the Weasel 
gave cunning and ferocity in war and the chase, the Snapping-turtle, 
probably one of the vague fourth group of Evil Powers, had given 
his heart, which beats long after it is torn from his bosom, to grant 
long life! Each animal had four songs sung in his honor during 
the session of the Lodge, said the elder, and the third instructor 
would teach these to the candidate. 

The old master informed his pupil that in his opinion the Medi- 
cine Lodge and its rites were found far to the east, in the country by 
the Great Sea Where the Dawn Rises, for he had once met a party 
of warriors, from the far off Nottoway or Iroquois, who spoke of a 
society and its ritual, given them by the animals-, which had for its 
object long life and immortality for men. 

Dawn-woman now fetched steaming rice and fat venison, marrow- 
bones and dried berries, and the little party feasted. The hour was 
very late, yet -none thought of sleep. After the feast, the third 
elder did his part. 

He selected a calabash rattle, and, sometimes rattling, some- 
times drumming an accompaniment, taught the songs of the Lodge 
to Little Wolf. There were songs of opening and songs of closing, 
as well as the animal songs, each repeated four times, the sacred 
number, and each in groups of four. Each was made obscure and 
unintelligible to eavesdroppers by the addition of nonsense syl- 
lables. Some, indeed, were so ancient, and so clouded by vocables, 
that nothing but their general meaning was remembered even by 
the brethren. These passed for songs in a secret, magic language. 
Some chants were in other languages, particularly Ojibway, and all 
ended with the mystic phrase "we-ho-ho-ho-ho," which meant "so 
mote it be." The songs had titles, but these names too, were magic, 
and often gave no inkling of the meaning or wording of the song, 
and most of them avoided naming the animals or gods to which they 
referred, except by circumlocution, or by merely mentioning some 
prominent characteristic or attribute of the creature. 



70 



American Indian Life 



There were songs for the "shooting of the medicine" — an act 
which was so secret and mysterious that the candidate was as yet 
kept in the dark as to its meaning — and others for dancing, for 
thanksgiving and for dedication. 

When the third elder had ended his synopsis of the songs, which 
the candidate had later to purchase and learn at leisure, the fourth 
and last past master took him in hand. His part, he said, was short, 
yet important. He showed the candidate certain articles which 
would be ceremonially given to the candidate at the proper time and 
place. Among these articles was the tanned skin of an otter, the 
nostrils of which were stuffed with tufts of red-dyed hawk-down, 
the under surfaces of the four feet and tail being adorned with 
fringed rectangles of blue-dyed doe leather, embroidered with con- 
ventional flower designs in colored porcupine hair and quills. This 
was to be the medicine bag of the new member. Through an open- 
ing, a slit in the chest of the otter, one could thrust a hand, and find 
in the little pouch made by the skin of the left forefoot of the animal, 
a small sea shell, called the konapamik, or medicine arrow, by which 
the essence of all the sacred objects contained in the >bag was cere- 
monially "shot" or transferred to the bodies of the Lodge brethren 
during the performance of the ritual. 

Three other medicines the otter skin contained. There were 
sacred, blue face-paint, the color of the sky; a mysterious brown 
powder holding a seed, wrapped in a packet with a fresh water 
clamshell; and another mixture of pounded roots called "Reviver," 
or Apisetchikun. 

The clamshell was a sacred, ancient cup, in which the accom- 
panying powder and seed were placed with a little water, and given 
to all candidates to drink. The mystic seed was supposed to be the 
badge of the Medicine Lodge, and was to remain in the candidate's 
breast, forever, even until he had followed the Pathway of the Dead 
along the Milky Way. The "Reviver" was a powerful drug for use 
at all times when life ebbed low, through sickness or magic. 

"These then," said the last instructor, "are the ways and sacred 
things of Ma'nabus, given us Indians to have and use, as long as the 
world shall stand!" 

So saying, he in turn retired, and the party rolled in their blankets 
to sleep before the sun could look in through the smoke hole of the 
wigwam. 



Little-wolf Joins the Medicine Lodge 71 



III 

THE INITIATION 

It was the season when buds burst, and the young owls, hatched 
while the snow was yet on the ground, were alrea.dy taking their 
prey. The discordant croaking of the frogs came as a roar from 
the marshlands. The arbutus was blooming. 

Perched on the top of a warm, sunny knoll, was an oblong, dome- 
roofed structure of poles, covered with bark and rush mats. It was 
oriented east and west, and its length, a full hundred feet, con- 
trasted oddly with its breadth of twenty. 

It was the evening of the fourth day of the Mitawiwin, or Medi- 
cine ceremony. The preceding three days and nights had been 
spent by the four masters, led by Terrible-eagle, in preparing Little- 
wolf within a room, formed by curtaining off one end of the lodge 
proper; in giving him his ceremonial sweat bath of purification; 
and in hanging the initiation fees, four sets of valuable goods — 
clothing, robes, weapons, copper utensils — on the ridgepole at the 
eastern end of the lodge; and in dedicating them. 

As the sun set, the four old men and the candidate entered the 
lodge, followed by the men and women of the tribe who were already 
members of the society. Going in at the eastern door, the procession 
filed along the north side, and passing once regularly around, the 
people seated themselves on the right of the door, with the candi- 
date on the west side of them, next to Terrible-eagle. 

The night having largely passed in quiescence and instruction, 
towards dawn an officer of the lodge approached Little-wolf, and 
stood before him, facing the east. Thrusting his hand into his 1 
medicine bag he drew forth his sacred clamshell cup and the powder 
containing the seed, which he compounded into a drink, while 
he sang a song called "What Otter Keeps." 

"I am preparing the thing that was hung [the little seed], 
And that which was hung shall fall!" 

When he had finished, and Little-wolf had swallowed the draft, 
this officer retired, and another came forward and took his place, 
singing. As he ended, he stooped over, coughed and retched vio- 
lently until he cast forth a sea shell, which he held in the palm of his 



72 



American Indian Life 



hand, and, chanting, displayed to the east, west, south, and north, 
after which he caused Little-wolf to swallow it, that it might remain 
in his body forever: the symbol of immortality, and the badge of 
a lodge member. When this had been accomplished the assistant 
gave place to a third, who sang his four songs and painted the can- 
didate's face with the sacred, blue paint. Then a fourth and last 
assistant came before the candidate and the masters, bearing an otter- 
skin, medicine bag, which he laid at Little-wolf's feet, while he 
sang four songs concerning Otter, the most famous of which was en- 
titled Yom Mitawakeu, or "This Medicine Land," but which held 
no reference to otters whatever! 

Now the old men conducted the candidate, four times regularly 
around the lodge, while they related to him somewhat of the story of 
the ancient Master Ma'nabus, whom he now represented. On the 
last circuit Terrible-eagle led him to a seat near the western end 
of the lodge, and there placed him, facing the east; remaining with 
the candidate standing behind, and holding his shoulders. 

The men and women seated around the walls of the lodge sat tense. 
The silence was unbroken save for woodland sounds, for the great, 
dramatic moment had arrived. 

The four assistant masters, who had just performed before Little- 
wolf, now assembled in the east, facing him, and the first, taking 
his medicine bag in his two hands, and holding it breast high before 
his body, sang, to the rapid beat of the drum, a song entitled 
"Shooting the New Member." At its end he gave the usual sacred 
cry "oh we ho ho ho ho!" blew on the head of the otter skin, and 
rushed forward as though to attack the candidate. 

In front of the neophyte impersonator of the ancient hero the 
attacker paused, and jerked the head of his otter upward, crying 
savagely, "Ya ha ha ha ha!" The magical essence of the bag 
supposedly striking the candidate, he staggered slightly, but was 
steadied by a companion, only to meet the feigned attacks of the 
second and third assistants, at each of which he reeled once more. 
But the charge of the fourth fellow was so violent that the candidate 
fell flat on the ground. Stooping, the last man laid the medicine 
bag across the back of the apparently unconscious brother, to be 
his, thereafter. At a sign from Terrible-eagle, the four assistants 
approached the prostrate candidate, and raising him to his feet, 



Little-wolf Joins the Medicine Lodge 



73 



shoo., him gently to remove their shots and restore him to life. 

And now all was rejoicing. Steaming earthen kettles were carried 
in, filled with delicious stews and soups of bear and turtle flesh, 
partridges, and young ducks. Laughing, jesting, and good-natured 
banter filled the lodge until the last wooden bowl was scraped clean, 
when the utensils and scraps were carried out, and the drummer 
struck up a lively dancing tune. After the men and women had had 
each four sets of songs, a general dance took place, wherein the 
members circled the lodge, the new brother among them, shooting 
each other promiscuously with jollity, vying with each other to rise 
and point their bags or fall prone on the earth. All the time a loud 
and lively chant was sung: 

i 

"I pass through them! I pass through them! I pass through even the chief!" 

ii 

"Ye Gods take part, invisible though ye be beneath us!" 

When all was over, and Keso, the Sun, was almost noon high, the 
four assistants took down the invitation fees from the ridgepole, and 
distributed them to the four old Masters and the others who had 
taken prominent part in the ceremonial, and all the Indians filed out 
of the western door, singing: 

"You, my brethren, I pass my hand over you. I thank you." 

■* *• * 

Muhwase, Little-wolf, watched the last of his companions strike 
their camps; saw the coverings stripped from the lodge structure, 
saw the last party vanish in the brush. 

He was a Mitao! A member of a great fraternal organization, 
who might travel westward to the foothills of the Rockies, north to 
the Barren Lands, south to the countries of the Iowa and Oto, east to 
the land of the Iroquois, and find brethren who had traveled the same 
road, or at least one fundamentally similar. He had shown his 
fortitude and fidelity, those two great, cardinal virtues of the 
Medicine Lodge, and he had come through the sacred mysteries alive 
and in possession of the secret rites that had been handed down since 
the days when the Menomini first came out of the ground. 

Alanson Skixxer 



Thunder-cloud, a Winnebago Shaman, 
Relates and Prays 

I CAME from above and I am holy. This is my second life on earth. 
Long ago I lived on earth, long ago when this earth was full of wars. 
I used to be a warrior then and I was a brave man. 

Long ago in battle I was killed. As I went along I thought I had 
stumbled and fallen on the ground. Then I got up again and went 
on my way. To my home I went. When I got home my wife and 
my children were there, but they would not look at me, they would 
not notice me. So I spoke to my wife, but she did not show in any 
way that she was aware of my presence. She did not show any 
signs that she was aware of anyone speaking to her. There I stood. 
I could not converse with them and they never looked at me. "What 
can be the matter?" I thought. At last it occurred to me that I 
was probably dead, so I immediately started out for the battlefield 
and there, surely enough, I saw my body lying. Then, for the first 
time, I knew that I was dead. 

After that I tried for a long time to return to my original home; 
for four years I tried, but I failed, so I stayed on earth. 

At one time I was a fish and I lived with them. Their life is 
much more wretched than ours, for they are often in lack of food. 
Yet they are happy beings for they have dances very often. 

At another time I lived as a little bird. Now that is a wonderful 
existence when the weather is good, but when it is cold, life is a 
hardship. Often birds are in lack of food and suffer from cold. It 
was my custom to go to the camp of certain people who lived near 
and to stay there in the daytime. These people were hunting at the 
time and from their meat-racks I used to steal a little food. 

A little boy was staying with them and we were always terribly 
afraid of him, for he had an object that was fear-inspiring. With 
this he would shoot and make so great a noise that we would fly 
away. At night we used to go home, to a hollow tree. Whenever I 
got there first, the others, coming after me in great numbers, would 



7 6 



American Indian Life 



almost squeeze me to death and yet , on those occasions when I waited 
till all the others had entered, I almost froze to death. 

On another occasion I became a buffalo and lived as a buffalo 
lives. Lack of food and cold weather did not bother us much, but we 
had to be on the alert all the time against hunters. 

Then from that place I went home, to my spirit-home up above, 
the place I had originally come from. Now in the sky, up above, 
there is a doctors' home; that is the place I have come from. 

After a while I wanted to leave my home and go to the earth 
again. The person in charge of that home is my grandfather. He 
at first objected to my going, but I asked him again and again. The 
fourth time I asked him, he consented. He said to me: "Well, 
grandson, if you really wish to go to the earth, you may go. Before 
you go, you had better fast, for if any of the spirits have compassion 
upon you, then you will be able to live in peace on earth." 

I fasted for four years, and the spirits above, even as far as the' 
fourth heaven, all approved of my going. They blessed me. Ten 
days I fasted and after that I fasted twenty days; and again I fasted 
thirty days. All the spirits blessed me, even those under the earth. 

Then when I was ready to go to the earth, all the spirits gathered 
around me and they had a council. In the center of the world, there, 
they had a council. There they were to advise me. All the spirits 
were present. They told me that I would not fail in anything I 
attempted. There they tested my powers. The first thing they did 
was to place a spirit grizzly bear at the end of the dancing lodge. 
This bear, it was said, could not be hurt in any manner. 

The lodge was full of spirits. Then they started to sing the songs 
that I was to use when on earth. After that, I walked around the 
fireplace, and taking a live coal, I held it in the palm of my hand 
and danced around the fireplace again. Then I shouted "wahi!" 
and struck the hand containing the live coal with the other hand. 
The bear, the invulnerable bear, shot forward and fell to the ground, 
flat on his stomach. A black substance oozed from his mouth. 

Then the spirits said to me, "You have killed him. Powerful as 
he was, you have killed him. Clearly never will anything eVil suc- 
ceed in crossing your path." That I would fail in nothing they told 
me. Then they took the one that I had killed and taking a red knife 
they cut him into pieces and piled him in the center of the lodge. 



Thunder-cloud Relates and Prays 



77 



There they covered him with a dark covering and said. "Now! 
Again you must try your strength." So I asked for the objects that 
I was to use on earth, a flute and a gourd. Those were the objects 
that I used. 

Then I made myself holy. Those that had blessed me were 
present. Then I walked around the one who had been cut into pieces 
and I breathed upon him. Then for the second time I walked around 
the object and I breathed upon him, and the rest within the lodge, 
breathed with me. Four times I breathed upon him, and then he 
arose and walked away, a human being. 

"Hoho, it is good," they said, "he has restored him to life. Surely, 
most surely, he is holy." Thus they spoke to me. "Well, grandson, 
you will ever be thus. Whatever exists you will be able to destroy 
and then to restore to life again. Most surely have you been 
blessed." Thus they spoke to me. 

Then they placed a black stone in the doctors' lodge above, there 
where I was blessed and again they put me to a test of strength. 
Four times I breathed upon that stone and finally I made a hole right 
through the stone by the force of my breathing. So now, whoever 
has a pain, if he permits me to blow upon him, then I can blow his 
pain away for him. It makes no difference what kind of pain it is, 
for my breath has been made holy. They, the spirits, made my breath 
holy and strong. 

Then the spirits presiding over the earth and those living under 
the earth, they also gave me a trial. A rotten log was placed before 
me. I breathed upon it, I spat water upon it, and the log rose up, 
a living man. He walked away. This power of spitting upon 
people, of squirting water upon people, I received from an eel; from 
an eel that was the chief of all the eels, an eel that lives in the center 
of the ocean, in the very deepest part of the ocean. He is perfectly 
white. He it is, who blessed me. Therefore it is that I can use water 
and that the water I possess is inexhaustible. This is what he told me. 

Then I came to the people of the earth. Before I came, they all 
had a council meeting about me. When I came, I entered a lodge 
and there I was born again. I thought that I had entered a lodge, 
but it was really my mother's womb that I had entered. Not even 
then, at my birth, did I lose consciousness. As I grew up I fasted 
again, and then again all those who had blessed me before sent their 



78 



American Indian Life 



blessings to me once more. It is for that reason that I am the dic- 
tator over all these spirits. Whatever I say will be so. 

Now the tobacco you offered me is really not for myself, but for 
the spirits, because I have really been sent here by the spirits to get 
tobacco for them. Here, there is a sick person and you have offered 
me tobacco. That is what I am on earth for : to accept this offering. 
I tell you that this patient will live. 

You will live, patient, so help yourself as much as you can and 
make yourself strong. Now as I offer tobacco to the spirits, you must 
listen, and if you feel that I am telling the truth, then you will gain 
strength thereby. 

Here is tobacco for you, O Fire! I offer tobacco to you. Ybu 
promised me that if I offered tobacco to you, you would grant me my 
request. That you promised, if I placed tobacco upon your head. 
Did you not say that to me after I had fasted for four days and you 
had blessed me? Now here there comes a plea from a human being, 
from one who wishes to live. Here, the tobacco is yours and I ask 
that within four days, he be restored to his usual health. I ask that 
he regain his former health and be even as the rest of us. I offer 
tobacco to you, grandfather. Here it is. 

May you, O Buffalo, also add your strength, add your power. 
Six days I fasted and then you sent your spirit upon me. I entered 
your lodge, your lodge that is in the center of this earth. You Buf- 
falo, you who are pure white in color, you blessed me. So likewise 
did the buffaloes with the four different colors. Those blessings 
that you bestowed upon me, those I now want. The gift of being 
able to breathe upon man, you gave me. You told me I would not 
fail. Now that is what I desire. Therefore it is that I ask that you 
add your strength as you promised, for they, the people, have given 
me plenty of tobacco. 

Now you, O Grizzly Bear, here is tobacco. At a place called 
Pointed-hill there is a spirit in charge of a dancing lodge. Now 
all those in that lodge blessed me and said that I would be able to 
kill anything that confronted me; that I would also be able to restore 
to life whatever I wished. Here I have opportunity of giving life 
to a man. I want him to live. They have given me tobacco. Here 
it is. When I was a ghost you took me to your home, and after I 
had fasted for ten days you blessed me. Those things with which 



Thunder-cloud Relates and Prays 



79 



you blessed me, those are the things that I now want. The people 
are offering you tobacco, grandfathers, — here it is. 

Now you, chief eel in the center of the ocean, you too blessed me 
after I had fasted for eight days. With your power of breath did 
you bless me, with your inexhaustible wealth of water. You gave 
me the gift of using it whenever I treated a patient. That is what 
you told me. All the water in the ocean you told me I could use. 
You blessed me with all the objects that exist in the ocean. Now here 
is a man desiring life, and I too wish him to live. It is for that reason 
that I speak to you in this way. As I now squirt water upon him, 
may it be as though it were your power. O grandfather, I offer 
you tobacco. Here it is. Here is tobacco for you. 

Now you who are above, Turtle, you who are in charge of a doctors' 
lodge, you blessed me after I had fasted seven days and you carried 
me, in spirit, to your home. There in your home I found all the 
birds who have sharp claws and you all blessed me and you told me 
that however bad the pain was, you would be able to extract it. 
Therefore it was that you named me the extractor of pain. Now 
here comes a man with an intense pain inside of him. I am the one 
to remove it for him, for I am the one you blessed and whom you 
taught that in nothing would he fail. I am going to heal this man. 
Here is the tobacco. 

You of the snake home, you the perfectly white one, Rattlesnake! 
Did you not bless me after I had fasted for four days? You said 
that on an occasion like this, you would help me. You blessed me 
with your rattles that I was to use as gourds. You blessed me and 
told me that I would accomplish all that I attempted, by the use of 
the rattle. I offer you tobacco therefore, that I may make this sick 
person live when I shake my gourd. That life would be opened 
before him, that is what you told me, grandfather. 

Ho, you Night Spirits! You too blessed me after I had fasted 
nine days. You took me to your village, situated in the east. There 
you told me that your plants were sacred and you blessed me with 
them. Now that is what I want. You made my flute sacred. That 
I am speaking the truth, you well know. Now to me the people 
have come bringing a sick person, for whom they desire life. I too 
want him to live. That is why I am speaking to you. You promised 
always to accept my tobacco and here it is, grandfathers. 



80 American Indian Life 

Ho, here is tobacco for you, Disease-giver! After I had fasted 
for two days, you caused me to know that you were the one that be- 
stowed diseases, that if I desired to heal one who is sick, that it would 
not be difficult. To you, therefore, Disease-giver, I offer tobacco. 
I offer you tobacco that this person, who is sick, may become well 
again. That is what you promised me in your blessing. 

Ho, you Thunderbirds! I offer you tobacco. When you blessed 
me, you said you would help me if I needed you. Now here I have 
someone who desires life. I, too, want him to live, and that is why 
I remind you of your promise. I ask your help, grandfather, as 
you promised it to me. Here is the tobacco. 

Ho, I offer you tobacco, Sun. Here it is. You blessed me after 
I had' fasted for five days and you said that you would come to my 
relief whenever I had a difficult object to accomplish. Now here 
is a man who desires life. He comes with offerings of tobacco to 
you. Since you have blessed me, the people have brought their 
offerings of tobacco to me. 

Ho, grandmother, Moon! You too blessed me, Moon. You said 
that you would also add your power. Here is a man who desires life 
and I call on you to add your power, as you promised me, so that he 
may live. Grandmother, here is tobacco. 

Ho, grandmother, Earth! To you I also offer tobacco. You 
blessed me and promised always to help me. You promised that I 
could use all the herbs belonging to you, all the best ones, and that 
then I would not fail in that which I attempted. Now that is what 
I ask on this occasion, and that you keep the promise you made to me 
and help me. I ask you to do for this sick man what these people are 
asking me to do for him. Make my medicine powerful, grand- 
mother. 

Ho, you the chief of all the spirits! You too have blessed me and 
you too said that you would help me. Therefore I offer you tobacco 
so that this person may live. If his spirit is about to wander, I ask 
that you keep away from him, that you do not seize him. This is 
what I ask of you and why I offer you tobacco. 

Ho-o-o, to all of you spirits I offer tobacco, to all of you who have 
blessed me. 

Paul Radin 



How Meskwaki Children Should Be 
Brought Up 



Harry Lincoln, of the Meskwaki, has dictated the following free rendition 
of a Meskwaki text written out in the current syllabary. 

WHEN a boy becomes old enough to be intelligent, his parents begin 
to teach him how to take care of himself and act righteously. They 
usually tell him not to do a good many things. Children are taught 
not to be naughty. They are told that if they are naughty, people 
will have nothing to do with them. They are told that if they are 
naughty, people will talk about them. And children are told not 
to steal anything from their neighbors. Moreover, children are 
taught not to talk to people. If they see any one going by their 
place, they should hold their tongues, nor should they laugh. 

And they also tell children not to visit other people too often. 
"Every time they see you going anywhere they would say that you 
are looking for something good to eat, if you go visiting too often,' 1 
is what children are told. So children do not often visit too much. 

They likewise tell children not to gamble. They tell them that 
they might be lucky and win, but that it would not benefit them. And 
they tell them that it is just as bad to lose. They caution them in 
this way: "If you win, people will see your winnings and will try 
to get you to gamble. And if you do, you will surely lose all that 
you have won. And yet it is not right to be over-quiet. If you are 
quiet and well off, that is not quite right either. If you have a lot 
of horses, people will be jealous of you. Some one might want some 
of your property, and you would not give it to him. That is how 
it will be. 

"The best way is to be kindly to every one, to speak kind words, 
to treat your friends nicely, to keep your heart clean, and not to talk 
meanly. If you do this, you will have a number of friends. And 
when you are a young boy, do not fight with other boys. If any one 
speaks badly to you, do not answer him. Let it go. This is one of 
the best things you can do. And if you see some one doing some- 
thing, you must hold your peace ; do not be the one to start the news. 

81 



82 



American Indian Life 



Do not tell what you saw him or her do. If you spread the report 
they will hate you. They will become your enemies." 

And there is another thing which boys are told. Boys are told not 
to tattle to any one. They are told not to be too intimate with girls. 
It is not a right thing for a boy to do. They are warned : "If you do 
that, people will be jealous of you." 

And there is another thing they are warned. "When there are 
many people, when something is going on, don't go over there, and 
try to show off. That will not benefit you. You may go to the crowd 
and see what is going on, but behave yourself. And if any one asks 
you a question, you are to tell the person that you know nothing about 
it. That is the best way to keep out of trouble." 

And there is another thing which young men are told, which is: 
"If some one asks you to do a favor, you must always do it for him. 
Some time in the near future they will come around again and ask 
another favor of you. If you refuse, you straightway will begin to 
have trouble. But you should always do a favor for any one, so as 
to please them." 

And another thing, young men are told, not to fear ashes: "By 
fasting and painting your face with ashes, you may get a blessing 
from the Manitou. If you do the right thing, you will surely be 
blessed. If you are afraid, the Manitou will know it. People claim 
that fasting and blackening one's face with ashes is one of the best 
things that they can do. In the early days it was said that if one 
fasted long to obtain a blessing from the Manitou, he often went on 
the war-path successfully; or he killed people by fasting so long. 
Such was the blessing the person obtained. And you can go and kill 
game easily. You may become a leader in anything. If there is a 
war you may become a leader. And you will always bring your men 
back safe and sound. They will not be killed by the enemy. You 
will surely be blessed by the Manitou if you take an interest in fast- 
ing, and are not afraid of doing so. After you have fasted long 
enough, if you desire anything, you will obtain it. So fasting is the 
right thing to do. And if you do this, you must get up early— before 
our grandfather, the Sun, rises. If anything happens to people 
where you are, after a few years, nothing will happen to you: you 
will not be destroyed. This is the only way you can live again. All 
the people will be benefited by you. This is the best life there is." 
And this is why children are taught to fast. 



How Meskwaki Children Should Be Brought Up 83 



Boys are told that if they see an animal they must not destroy it. 
For if they destroy animals, they themselves will not live very 
long. Boys are also taught to be good hunters. 

Boys are taught nearly everything so that they can get along nicely 
with their wives after they are married. They are told that if they 
are hustlers many girls will wish to marry them. 

Of course this is after they have grown to be young men. Up to 
that time they are merely made to fast. And by fasting, is how they 
reach old age. Also children are made to fast when any one dies. 
And they also tell children not to make a noise when some one dies; 
and not to play where the body is. And they tell boys not to refuse 
if they are asked to do something. "If you do what people who 
have lost their relatives ask you, they will be well satisfied with you. 
And some day you will exchange positions. If you ask them a favor 
at that time, they will willingly do it," is what boys are told. 

And this is what boys are told when they are growing up : "If you 
are asked to be a ceremonial attendant at clan festivals, you must do 
it. By doing them the favor of waiting on them, you will benefit 
your own life. And any time you are asked to do anything you must 
always do it, so as to please the people." 

And after they grow up, they are told not to bother too much with 
girls, especially if they have sisters of their own. They are told, 
"Sometime you may be desired as a son-in-law. But if you bother 
with many girls, while going with one, they will think you are a no- 
body." And they tell boys not to be intimate with girls unless they 
plan to marry them. They are told/'You must not say anything evil 
to women : if you do, you will be talking evilly to your own sisters. 

"And if you are going with a girl, if you are engaged to her, you 
must marry her, and treat her rightly. You must go home with her 
and stay with your father-in-law and your mother-in-law. You must 
treat them as nicely as you can. And you should hunt for your 
mother-in-law and your father-in-law. If you treat your wife 
meanly, every one will talk about you. And that will make it bad 
for you. At all gatherings people will talk about you, saying how 
badly you treat your wife. The people will say many things about 
you, though you may not know it. They will say you are jealous. 
And in that way people will always refuse you favors. You will be 
treating your wife badly, if you pay no attention to the old people. 
"You must obey your parents. It is the right thing to obey one's 



8 4 



American Indian Life 



parents. And boys who do not obey their parents are the worst 
boys to-day. 

"If you know any one has something of his own, you must not 
ask him for it, nor must you steal it. It is not right to steal. If you 
steal or ask for the thing you want, all the people will be afraid of 
you. You are nothing but a beggar. Every one will say that to you. 
They will call you a beggar." 

Now when boys are beginning to be grown up, they are told : "You 
must not turn against your friends; you must be kind-hearted. And 
you must not bother with any woman or girl who is married to an- 
other man. You should not try to 'cut him out.' It is dangerous 
to do that. 1 ' This is one of the most important things they try to get 
boys to understand. By doing what is forbidden they might get 
into trouble; and they might end their lives. Many boys end their 
lives before they are middle-aged by not listening to their parents. 

And girls are taught a little differently from boys. Of course 
they tell girls, in the beginning, the same thing, that is, how to take 
care of themselves. They teach girls that if they obey the rules they 
will have an easier life as they grow older. After they are old 
enough they teach them how to do things. And they also make them 
fast. They are asked to fast so that adversity shall not strike them 
when they grow up. They make girls fast for four days. They 
make them fast all winter, especially when they are beginning to 
be young ladies. The reason why they make them fast is that they 
are supposed to dream of something that will take them through their 
life. That is why they do not take regular meals like others, to 
prepare for a long life. 

And they teach them to do something for themselves, especially 
when they grow up. They teach them work, suitable for women. 
They teach them to learn to make mattings and how to make sacks. 
They also teach them how to make moccasins and beadwork. Girls 
are told that they can get along nicely if they learn these things before 
they are married. They are told, "You will be benefited by doing 
this for your husband. Your relatives will be benefited by you." 

And girls are told: "If you are a moral girl, your father-in-law 
and mother-in-law will treat you as nicely as they can. And they 
will love you. If you are quiet and well-behaved, you will be much 
better off than those girls who do not mind. Men do not care for 
girls who do not mind and who are immoral. If you do not mind 



How Meskwaki Children Should Be Brought Up 85 



and are immoral, no man will have you for his wife." That is why 
girls are taught to be good. 

After they learn to make things, they are taught to cook meals. 
Girls are told that by doing so, they are leading themselves the right 
way. "By so doing you are leading yourself an easy way. Some- 
time you may grow up and make your own home." That is why 
girls are told to be willing workers. 

And girls are told not to go off and live with other people. Of 
course people would like a girl to live with them a few days. But 
a few days later they might turn her out, especially if she were lazy. 
People do not wish to support a lazy person. This is why girls are 
taught to cook. 

And after they are married, girls are especially told not to say 
anything about other persons, and not to feel unfriendly towards 
them. And they are told not to have any quarrels with other people, 
for that is not a right thing to do. They are told to be kind towards 
the people and not to have quarrels with any one. "This is the best 
way, to be friendly with every one. By so doing, the people will 
feel kindly towards you. They will always say a good word for 
you. People do not think anything of a mean person. If you are 
mean, some day some one will turn against you. Some persons are 
dangerous. They have secret ways to kill people." This is why 
girls are told not to be mean, or say mean things to other persons. 
And some girls hate their parents for telling them this. But it is 
a rule that children should be taught. The reason parents tell girls 
this, is because they love them so well. They are teaching them so 
they can attain an old age. Girls who were not taught, do anything 
they please. They do not care what they do. They spoil themselves. 

Girls are supposed to be taught till they are married. After a 
girl is married, she has full control of herself, and may do whatever 
she thinks best. But it is best to follow the rules forever, to be kind 
to one's husband and the people. It is pretty hard to lead a 
righteous life. 

When girls begin to have children they are told to be kind to their 
children and love them, and not to do anything bad to them. And 
they are taught that if they live quietly to an old age, they them- 
selves will be the only relations they have. 

And before children are well grown, they dare not go any place 
by themselves. Of course boys are different: they can go any place 



86 



American Indian Life 



they please. And girls dare not do so, unless they have a good 
reason for it. They are taught to always be at home and do the work. 
They are told : "If you grow to be a young lady, if you walk around 
and do not do any work, people will not think anything of you. 
They will always talk about you. They will say that all you are 
good for, is to walk from place to place. They will say you are look- 
ing for a place to get your meals. They will say that you are looking 
for a place where you can get the finest food. They will say many 
things about you. They will even say that you are worse than a man. 
Every time you are on the road they will say, 'There goes a woman 
who goes about looking for good meals for herself.' " That is the 
reason why they desire a girl to be able to do things so that she can 
support herself after she is grown. That is why they tell girls to 
obey their parents. Their parents have had good experience and 
know what they are talking about. 

And when girls arrive at puberty, they are told not to marry a 
divorced man. They are told to marry a young man. In the early 
days, people used to say to each other when girls married divorced 
men: "It is not natural for a girl to marry a divorced man, nor for 
a young man to marry a divorced woman." They told girls that 
if they married young men, that they would be benefited by getting 
horses, and so on. And a girl is told to look around and get the 
right kind of a boy. In the early days, they liked boys who killed 
game, trapped, sold furs, and so got money; but nowadays they tell 
girls to look around for boys that have horses, homes, everything they 
want. They say, "That's the right kind of a young man to marry — 
one that can support you." 

Girls are also told: "When you are staying with your father-in- 
law and with your mother-in-law, you are supposed to help them 
in their work. When your mother-in-law begins doing anything, 
you must ask her if you may do it." A girl is taught this so that she 
can get along nicely after she is married. Girls are told: "If you 
don't do these things, people will talk about you, and say how lazy 
you are. And people will not like you." This is the reason why 
a girl is taught all manner of work. 

And all girls are taught the same things. And in this way, they 
lead themselves the right way. 

Truman Michelson 



In Montagnais Country 



On the shores of a great lake were clustered the buildings of the 
old Hudson's Bay Company's Post, where the People of the Interior 
came every spring with their cargoes of pelts to trade for the articles 
which the white man made for them. Through the long, cold win- 
ters, the factor and his crew passed the time as comfortably as they 
could, with little to break the monotony of the days, while powerful 
blasts of cold, often bringing several feet of drifted snow in their 
wake, beat upon the buildings. In the summer, however, the time 
went quickly. From the vast, forested hills northward came the 
returning bands of trappers, bringing the results of their winter's 
hunt. From the regions nearer, the People of the Lake, by shorter 
stages, came in, too, with their peltry. So, with the two bands of 
nomads camped along the beach and on the grassy terrace between 
the lake and the forest of the upland, the scene was enlivened each 
spring by the presence of several hundred hunters, with their 
families, gaudily dressed and garrulous. 

By day, in the heat of the sun, which makes these northern places 
blossom in acres of green and showy flowers, the newcomers wan- 
dered from tent to tent, exchanging gossip, talking, singing, gaming 
and planning for the coming of winter; and all the time gradually 
enlarging the store of their annual necessities by an irregular trade 
with the factor behind his long counter in the Post shop. By night 
among the tents, grouped in twos and threes, the twinkling lights 
illuminated scenes of quiet domestic life, where some were asleep 
on piles of tent litter and furs, while others were engaged in plying 
the busy needle or in the low conversation which made the early eve- 
nings such pleasant times for visiting between those who had not seen 
each other for many months. 

The People of the Interior always came to the Post two or three 
weeks later than those whose hunting grounds were around the lake. 
Some of the families from the interior came six hundred miles, 
driving dogs which dragged their laden sleds, the canoes forming 
part of the loads, until, coming south to where the snow was giving 

87 



88 



American Indian Life 



way to the advance of the spring, they left the sleds and loaded the 
canoes, finishing their journey by drifting in them with the swollen 
current down to the great lake. The trading completed, the People 
of the Interior returned as they had come, by canoe and sled, leaving 
the Post two or three weeks sooner than the People of the Lake. 
This had been the procedure for innumerable generations. 

The People of the Lake never envied their friends from the in- 
terior. Their nearness to the Post they considered a great advan- 
tage. They could even make a short journey to the Post in 
midwinter to enjoy the festivities of Christmas with the factor and 
his employees, while their friends in the interior were perhaps 
freezing or starving if the game had failed them. 

The People of the Lake had begun to feel themselves wiser and 
more important than their simple forest neighbors. Often one of 
them would come back from the metropolis with new and smart-cut 
clothes, plenty of gin, and some household finery with which to 
decorate the shelves and tables of the board houses which they had 
erected on the lake shore, but above all, with glowing accounts of the 
great and busy city where everything could be had that a Mon- 
tagnais might covet in his most prodigal dreams. To the People 
of the Interior, these tales sounded marvelous, yet, much as they 
loved to hear them told, there was a lingering suspicion in their 
minds that all was not as fine and grand as it was painted, judging 
by the strong breath, the fagged condition and the depleted pocket- 
books of those who had experienced these transitory contacts with 
the outside world. 

A product of the conditions which made the People of the Lake 
so satisfied with themselves was young Antoine, a stalwart youth, 
whose knowledge of French and the astute principles of business in 
general, made him invaluable to the independent fur traders who 
regularly came to the lake to drive bargains with the returning 
hunters. Antoine's clothes showed his advance in the social scale. 
Peg-top trousers, narrow-waisted jacket, suede-topped, patent leather 
shoes, blue celluloid collar, ready-made cravat, and a green woolen 
golf cap marked him at once as a denizen of the back streets of Mont- 
real as much as his brown skin, oblique eyes, and sleek hair pro- 
claimed his origin from the People of the North. In broken 
French, even in broken English, Antoine could swear in competition 



In Montagnais Country 



8 9 



with the French-Canadian employees of the honorable Hudson's 
Bay Company's Post, and those of Revillon Brothers of Montreal 
who sought to compete with the great company. Antoine had 
actually cultivated an urbane swagger, he consumed innumerable 
packages of paper cigarettes and perfumed his system attentively 
with draughts of gin and brandy. At times, even, Antoine forgot 
that he was a Montagnais. It was only when reminded by his own 
people that it was unbecoming for him to prey upon them to the ad- 
vantage of the traders, that his vanity was lowered to a point which 
made him agreeable to the other young men. To the girls he was 
more attractive, and among the People of the Lake there were few 
girls he had not sampled. At times his vain heart yearned to ex- 
tend his conquests to the simple maids who came patiently with their 
parents on the toilsome journey from the hills and forests of the 
north. 

The head man of the People of the Interior, old Shekapeo, whose 
name meant "Going Backwards," was a stern and practical hunter 
whose annual catch could generally be depended upon to contain 
the finest and rarest furs. While he was alive to the defects of 
character which made Antoine in figure and reputation so conspicu- 
ous about the Post, he often wondered if a matrimonial attachment 
between Antoine and his daughter would not be of considerable 
advantage. With his own opportunities of production and An- 
toine's far-reaching business experience and associations, he had 
more than once pictured the advantage, while puffing his pipe before 
the fire. And yet he could not make up his mind to discourage the 
growing intimacy between his daughter and a young man of his own 
band, whom he had always admired for his quiet energy and pro- 
ductive trapping. The girl herself, if left to her own judgment, 
would have had little to say. Born by the side of a remote lake on a 
beautiful still morning, when the heat of noontime was lifting a 
mirage to the north across the glassy waters, her mother had called 
her Ilitwashteu, Mirage, from the first phenomenon seen after the 
birth of her child. Mirage, like her father, felt the contrast be- 
tween Good-ground and Antoine. But the mystery of Antoine was 
making him an object of growing interest in her mind. She had 
dared to raise her eyes from her moccasins and look directly at him 
once, when he had come to the tent to talk with her father on business. 



g 0 American Indian Life 

Then, when her father's back was turned, Antoine spoke to her, but 
she did not go so far as to answer him. 

It was winter. Shekapeo had returned to his hunting grounds in 
the region of the Lake of Steep Shores. Near him, this year, was 
camped the family of young Good-ground who was at this season 
trapping in that section of his hereditary hunting grounds for marten. 
The territories of the two families adjoined each other, though for 
several years each had been operating on the more distant tracts, with 
the idea of allowing the intervening zone to become replenished 
with the fur-bearing animals. Old Shekapeo and young Good- 
ground knew perfectly well where their respective bounds lay. 
During the winter they occasionally visited one another and some- 
times planned to exchange privileges in each other's grounds. 
When, for instance, one year bear had been abundant in Shekapeo's 
district, owing to a forest fire in the month of flowers which had left 
in its wake an exceptional abundance of berries, the same winter on 
young Good-ground's territory, caribou had wandered in unusual 
numbers. Then they had allowed each other to cross the landmarks. 
Good-ground took toll on many of Shekapeo's bears, and Shekapeo 
took what he needed of Good-ground's caribou. 

It happened late in the winter in the month of great cold that 
several members of Good-ground's family were taken sick with 
coughs and aching limbs. Sickness added to Good-ground's duties, 
and often he was prevented from following his line of traps properly, 
by the necessity of remaining at camp himself. One trip when he 
started to visit his ten traps, which were strung at a distance of about 
two miles apart along the banks of the River of Poplars, he found 
himself at the ninth trap by the end of the second day. So bad had 
been the conditions of travel, and his own feelings so oppressed, that 
late this afternoon, he made himself a little fire where he had scraped 
away the snow with one of his snowshoes, and boiled himself a pot of 
tea Near the fire lay his good dogs Ntohum and Kawabshet, My 
Hunter" and "Whitey," names descended through many generations 
of canines They were worn out and tired, from pulling the toboggan 
through the soft, deep snowdrifts. The nine traps had yielded a few 
furs, yet most of them were empty. The promise of bad weather 
added to the trouble. To the northeast a heavy bank of lead-colored 
sky appeared above the pointed tops of the vast spruce forest, tit- 



In Montagnais Country 9 1 

ful blasts of wind came occasionally from the same quarter, growing 
more frequent during the afternoon and causing Good-ground many 
times to turn his head about and look behind, then urge the dogs with 
a few sharp words to greater exertions. 

Now, smoking his pipe of stone, which several times he refilled 
with dry tobacco obtained from the Post so far away, his eyes rested 
first upon his fagged dogs, then upon the slowly spreading pall of 
gray, northward above the hills. The question of the tenth trap was 
resting heavily upon Good-ground's mind. Might there be anything 
held fast in its iron jaws, or would the machine be empty before his 
disheartened gaze, should he gather his forces together and press on 
against the rising wind for another three hours? The price to pay in 
risk to himself and his animals for whatever might be caught there, 
would be, indeed, the highest. With depleted provisions through an- 
other afternoon of struggle against the blizzard which was surely 
coming, a question arose in his experienced mind as to the actual 
possibility of its accomplishment. Should he turn about now and go 
down with the wind to the little shelter camp where he could spend 
the night, back on Round Lake, he would then be within a short day's 
voyage of his home camp. There his sick family, brothers, sisters 
and mother, were comfortably and snugly housed in their warm tent, 
roofed tightly with birch-bark and lined with caribou skins, making 
it warm as the inside of his fur-lined mitten. But what if trap 
number ten should contain an animal, perhaps a sable or even a black 
fox, whose pelt would bring the profit he so badly needed? 

Having filled his pipe several times, and cleaned it with the blade 
of bone which he carried tied to his tobacco bag, it seemed as if Good- 
ground could not decide. Finally, with a motion of determination, 
he plunged his hand into the bag, which contained the carcass of a 
hare reserved for his supper. With a few cuts of his knife he got out 
the shoulder blade of the animal, and he removed the clinging flesh 
by tearing it off with his teeth till the bone was clean and brown ; then 
upon the end of a split stick he held the hare's shoulder bone before 
the heat of his fire, and raised his voice in a low melody which came 
from between slightly opened lips. "Ka na ka na aa ka na he " 
While he sang, the bone, affected by the heat, grew black toward the 
center; finally a segment with a little crack split from the center and 
ran toward the edge, breaking through the bone and causing it to 



92 



American Indian Life 



burn away on one of its outer sides. The divination was complete. 
The spirit of the hare had told him that his voyage would be un- 
successful. 

Now, with a few deft and decided motions, Good-ground cleaned 
out his pipe, replaced several articles which he had removed from 
his bag, adjusted his snowshoes by kicking his feet into the stiffened 
loops, and squared about toward the south, pulling the sled around 
on its runners till it, too, pointed backwards along the trail over 
which he had, thirty minutes ago, tramped down the snow to make a 
path for his dogs. The animals needed no human urging to tighten 
their traces and drag the sled forward in a trail, which even now was 
being blown over with drifting snow coming slant-wise through the 
forest on a furious wind. Kiwedin, the north wind, was now going 
to rule the world of the people of the north. Whatever thought 
Good-ground had a while ago as to what the tenth trap might have 
yielded him had he gone to it, faded from his mind with the satisfac- 
tion that he was obeying his dream animal, and that probably he 
would reach his home camp in time to escape the suffering which he 
knew he would have met had he gone on to learn what trap number 
ten contained. His forebodings were not without ground. It was 
with difficulty that he reached his little camp station that night, 
helped along by the wind at his back. His out-trail was now com- 
pletely covered, but it had been possible for him to run ahead of his 
dogs and break the snow for them with his snowshoes. That night at 
his station he tried again his "mutnshawan" and the bone broke in 
the same way as before. This time the crack in the surface of the 
shoulder blade zig-zagged off in the direction of the home camp, a 
sure indication that this was to be the direction of travel next day. 

By the time the late northern dawn had lighted up the trail 
sufficiently for him to follow it, Good-ground had fed his dogs and 
himself on the remaining carcasses of the few beasts that he had taken, 
in coming up to his line of traps. By dark, forcing his way through 
growing drifts with the wind still at his back, he silently wound into 
the cleared space, near the center of which stood the three bark tents 
with their wisps of smoke driven horizontally from the poles, that 
for almost nine months of the year he called home. Several little 
fox-bred mongrel dogs limped out on the beaten footpaths from one 
of the tents, and with wheezy coughs announced the return of the son 



t 



In Montagnais Country 



93 



and brother to the females within the enclosure. They were build- 
ing up the fire and preparing a stew of hare and smoked caribou 
meat. Good-ground lifted the skin hanging before the door, bent 
under its low arch, and stepped toward the fire, laying his game bag 
on the boughs near the knees of his oldest sister. The glances at his 
face and his return glance showed that all was well, they felt, while 
all were still alive. And smiles lighted their faces as the girl 
brought the contents of one of the packs from the sled and opened it 
before their eyes, though it contained only medium pelts and carcasses 
only large enough to go into the stew-pot for to-morrow's dinner. 

The blizzard raged, the weak and sick ones got worse before they 
got better, and several weeks passed before Good-ground could 
muster the strength, and afford the time to harness his dogs again and 
move along the trap line. Smoked caribou flakes, hare carcasses, 
and a small portion of flour had carried them through the short 
period of famine. 

Finally with the return of good weather and the subsidence of the 
wind, Good-ground was able to make his round of traps, baiting and 
resetting those which had been torn down by the force of the wind, 
the snow and the beating branches of the undergrowth. Arriving at 
the location of trap number ten, he scraped away the snow to find 
there the chewed and devoured remains of a splendid black fox! 
The loss, Good-ground realized as he stood there regarding the re- 
maining'patch of silky ink-black fur no larger than the span of his 
hands, would amount to $2500 at least. Had he visited trap number 
ten that terrible day, weeks ago, he might have secured the pelt. 

On his return home Good-ground was to have another surprise. 
He found his neighbor old Shekapeo visiting his family, having 
ventured a day's struggle through the soft and deep snowdrifts, from 
a sympathetic desire to see whether all had gone well with the family 
whose lives depended upon the support of one young man. 

Shekapeo heard the story of Good-ground's lost prize with im- 
passive expression. But on his way home the next day, tramping 
ahead of his dogs he had time to think over the bad luck attaching to 
Good-ground. Shekapeo's thoughts then turned to the coming trad- 
ing season at the Post, and in particular to the financial ascendancy 

of Antoine. . . 

During that spring season at the Post, among the tales which cir- 



94 



American Indian Life 



culated was that about Good-ground and trap number ten. The 
story of the adventure did not turn out to his credit, especially after 
Antoine took occasion to say to Shekapeo, in the presence of the 
family, including Mirage, that Good-ground was a fool to have 
turned back at a time when a catch worth several thousand dollars 
was waiting his enterprise. 

To account for Good-ground's lack of success, Antoine even 
remarked that Good-ground's dream spirit would not have lied to him 
that day when he turned back, unless he had been a liar himself. 

With the advent of the moon when the birds begin to fly, which 
the white people at the Post called August, the People of the Interior 
having finished their trading, repaired their canoes, and satisfied 
their craving for society, bade adieu to their friends of the lake and 
started on their return to the northern wilderness. In the coming 
voyage of ascent, Good-ground's three canoe loads of provisions 
and supplies, in large part advanced to him in credit by the factor, 
which were to last him through the winter on his hunting 
grounds, would have to be carried over thirty-two portages. If the 
weather continued good he expected to make the return trip in forty 
days. The largest lake that he had to cross would be nine miles 
wide, but if the wind blew hard he would have to make double that 
distance by working around the shore line. His load consisted of 
about two thousand pounds in all, fifteen bags of flour, two hundred 
pounds of pork, ten of tobacco, one hundred of flour, one hundred 
of grease, twenty-five of tea, forty of salt, twenty boxes of baking 
powder, twenty-five bars of soap, two boxes of candles, twelve boxes 
of shells, four boxes of rifle cartridges, three hundred traps, from 
beaver size down, and ten bear traps, — all this in three canoes. With 
the help of mother, sisters, and younger brothers, these canoes had to 
be paddled in smooth water, while on the portages and in water that 
was too shallow for paddling, they had to be relayed in loads on the 
back. 

Finally, their toilsome journey ended, Good-ground and the others 
reached their distant hunt-grounds and reopened their home camps, 
where, all summer during their absence, the porcupines and other 
rodents had made havoc among the greasy furnishings ; where even an 
occasional passing bear had left his marks. More than once the 
caribou and moose had poked their noses well within the clearing 



In Montagnais Country 



95 



and among the deserted tents, as though they knew that the men, who 
in the winter time were so eager for their lives, were now far away 
killing fish to live on, and eating the white men's food put up in tin 
cans. 

So another winter was passed by the People of the Interior, busy in 
killing the wild animals of the forest and busy, too, in reviving the 
spirits of the slain animals, as they believed, by constant resource to 
drumming, singing, praying, and other shamanistic performances. 

This winter at the Post, for Antoine, at least, was also a season of 
great activity. Antoine's astute employer, an independent French 
trader, had conceived a scheme to secure the trade of the People of 
the Interior when they should come out from the forests in the spring. 
The scheme was nothing less than to have a score of cases of the 
strongest fire water sent to the lake, at great expense, hidden from the 
eyes of the revenue officers en route. The whole was to cost about all 
that the independent French company could afford to put into the 
venture, and incidentally, as his employer finally made clear to him, 
to absorb the whole of Antoine's available estate in the shape of over 
a thousand dollars ready cash. Antoine and his employer gloated 
together over the scoop that would be made when the People of the 
Interior were told that the old company factor had died and the Post 
was closed, and learned that the new company had gone to the trouble 
of providing for them their beloved liquor so that there should be at 
least something for which to trade their furs. It was planned that 
Antoine should ascend the river Where-Moose-Abound, down which 
the People of the Interior generally came, a several days' journey, 
and there intercept them and put through the hoax. 

With considerable care, seven sturdy canoe men were engaged, 
with Antoine as their foreman, to transfer the disguised cases from 
the lake to a convenient point up the river where the People of the 
Interior, with their precious cargoes of fur, would be sure to pass by 
in their descent. On the great day, the flotilla with its spirituous 
cargo made an early morning start. The men, with occasional levies 
upon the contents of their load to refresh themselves, finally reached 
the destined point and unloaded the boxes, setting up their camp to 
wait for the arrival of the descending hunters. Antoine's expectations 
ran high. He pictured to himself the consternation with which the 
People of the Interior would receive the surprising news that he had 



9 6 



American Indian Life 



to impart, and then the eagerness with which they would fall upon 
his stores of liquor. With their potations well begun, he expected 
that they would not stop until they had traded the best of their pel- 
tries for the last flask of his fire water. His visions were hourly 
more stimulated by draughts upon his stock. 

That evening, when the voyagers had settled down about their 
leaping fire, nothing would have aroused the suspicion of the 
observer as to what was about to take place. The seven canoe men, 
who were from among the People of the Lake, had decided upon an 
action which, to their minds, seemed advantageous to themselves, as 
well as in accordance with the excise laws of the Dominion, but 
which was prompted above all by fidelity to their friends among the 
People of the Interior. These men of the People of the Lake had 
known from former years' experience what it would mean for their 
friends of the forest to be turned back to their distant hunting 
grounds with nothing but the remains of a drunken orgy to meet their 
requirements for the coming winter. Therefore had they decided, 
with great moral satisfaction, in the interests of self, of government, 
and of mankind exactly what their correct course should be. 

Before the evening had worn away, Antoine felt himself enjoying 
the best of spirits. He did not notice, when one of the men asked 
him to pass the matches, that two of the others behind him were 
fumbling among some tangled thongs and ropes. He did not notice, 
until too late, a quick movement by which he was thrown on his back 
and quickly bound hand and foot, his hands behind his back. At- 
tempts to reach his sheath-knife, frantic yells, squirmings, and 
attempts to bite the binding thongs were lost in a roar of laughter 
which greeted him when he was tumbled to one side of the camp 
like a strangled bear, to curse in French, and threaten them with 
every dreadful thing that the northern Indian has learned to fear. 
They only laughed at him as his store clothes became grimy and his 
urbane veneer disappeared. They laughed all the more, these merry 
Men of the Lake, when the boxes had been broken open with their 
keen axes and the corks pulled from a score of flat bottles, whose 
limpid contents disappeared down their throats between gurgles of 
liquid and gurgles of laughter and jokes. 

Now for two days this merry camp of Bacchus made the forests 
echo with songs and cries, some from the throats of the Men of the 



In Montagnais Country 



97 



Lake, growing louder each hour, others growing feebler each hour 
from the throat of Antoine. Had the People of the Interior been 
within hearing distance, they might have thought that a band of 
marauding enemies had engaged one another in warfare on their 
peaceful river. And no doubt they would have gone into conceal- 
ment until some of their scouts could have learned the cause of it. 
But it so happened that they were delayed many miles up the river 
at one of the portages; several invalids had required attention. 
When all were able to resume their journey they descended by easy 
stages to favor the condition of their patients. 

It was not until the second day after the demolition of the boxes 
and their contents in Antoine's bivouac, that the flotilla carrying 
the People of the Interior swung around a point of the river, and 
came down upon the camp, where by this time all the merrymakers 
were strewn about in a profound sleep. Cautiously and reverently 
stepping ashore, the foremost men in the canoes of the People of the 
Interior believed that they had come upon a camp of the dead, al- 
though, as they afterward remarked, the odor pervading the air was 
not exactly of a funereal taint. It took but a few moments for them 
to connect the circumstances. It took but a few more for them to 
connect with a dozen of the flat bottles whose contents had either been 
reserved for this special occasion by the thoughtful Men of the Lake, 
or had been overlooked in the surge of feeling which had followed 
their first attack upon the load. It now became the turn of the 
People of the Interior to show solicitude for those men of the 
People of the Lake, who had so sacrificed their loyalty to their em- 
ployer for the sake of their kinsmen. Even Antoine was stripped 
of his thongs and stood upon his feet. But two days of fasting and 
exposure in the damp moss in his wet store clothes, with nothing to 
eat or drink, had about exhausted his constitution. His companions 
were the first to resuscitate, and it was from their lips that the story 
of the event was learned by the bewildered People of the Interior. 

A day or so later, refreshed with sleep, fresh fish, and cold water, 
the whole company pushed off from the shore. The People of the 
Interior continued their journey to the Post, but among some of 
them a change had taken place which was to affect in particular the 
relationship of two individuals. These two were Good-ground and 
Mirage. Frank G. Speck 



Hanging-flower, the Iroquois 



i 

She was born in a bark house. Her mother, Rising-sun, was 
surprised as she looked at the little face, for she felt that once before, 
long ago, she had seen that face, and presently the assurance 
came to her that the child was the image of her great-grandmother, 
Rising-sun's mother's mother, whom she had often seen when she 
herself was a little girl. Hanging-flower had been a great medicine 
woman in her day, and the fame of her art had spread far and wide; 
on one occasion, it was claimed, she had even cured a woman of 
insanity. Rising-sun could not hesitate long: she wished to name 
the baby Hanging-flower. 

Soon after this, when Rising-sun had regained her health and 
vigor, she called on Clear-as-a-brook, the Keeper of names of the 
Bear clan, to which Rising-sun belonged. From her the mother 
learned that Hanging-flower, a remote relative of Rising-sun, of 
whom she remembered having heard, had recently died and that her 
name had been u put away in a box." The mother knew now that 
nothing stood in the way of the realization of her desire: Hanging- 
flower was to be the name of her little girl. 

When the fall came, Rising-sun began to get ready for the great 
Green Corn Festival, and on the second day of the festivities she 
carried little Hanging-flower to the Long House where her name 
was ceremonially bestowed upon her, in the presence of all the 
people. 

II 

The first summers of Hanging-flower's life passed uneventfully. 
Rising-sun was a kind mother; for hours she talked to little Hang- 
ing-flower in soft, soothing tones, and at night she sang her to sleep 
with her doleful, monotonous lullabies. When harvesting time 
came and Rising-sun was busy in the cornfields with the other 
women, Hanging-flower was wrapped and tied securely to her 

99 



100 



American Indian Life 



carrying-board, which was then hung on a branch of an elm tree; 
there, gently swayed by the wind, Hanging-flower slept, while her 
mother was hard at work. 

Ill 

The summers passed, and Hanging-flower was a baby no longer. 
Her mother taught her the art of cooking; she also began to help 
when the corn was pounded in large, wooden mortars. Soon she 
learned how to embroider. And as her fingers grew nimble and 
her eyes fond of the colored beads and wampum shells, she began 
to feel that the world of buds and flowers and leaves was her own, 
hers and her mother's and of the other women; — the men knew 
nothing of such things. 

Once, when Rising-sun's brother was staying for a visit, Hanging- 
flower overtook him at work on a small False Face; for a long time 
she watched him unobserved, and when he was gone, she practiced 
carving on bits of wood and bark until she felt that she was as good 
at it as any man. But of this she never spoke nor did she show her 
work to any one, as she had been taught that carving was not 
woman's work. 

IV 

The summers passed and Hanging-flower became a maiden. Her 
eyes were large, black and deep, and her hair which she wore in two 
large braids, fell heavily from her shoulders. As she passed along 
the road, some boys looked intently at her while others turned their 
eyes away and hurried their steps. But, one and all, she passed 
them by. Hanging-flower had become a great dancer, and many 
a flattering comment was heard among the older men and women 
as they watched her dance with the others at the Strawberry and 
Raspberry Festivals. 

V 

At the next berrying season Hanging-flower joined a group of 
young men and girls and together they went off to the woods. Old 
Ringing-voice, the great story-teller, was with them. 

Every night, when the day's work was done and the boys and girls 
returned to camp with their baskets heaped full of red, juicy berries, 



Hanging-flower, the Iroquois ioi 

they would all sit around the fire, while Quick-of-hand and She- 
works-in-the-house, who were reputed for their skill in cooking, 
prepared a delicious soup of corn meal, after which, berries in great 
quantities were eaten. Then Ringing-voice would light his pipe 
and leaning his back against a tree stump, the legs drawn up so that 
the knees almost touched his chin, he would begin to talk, in slow 5 
and measured phrases. It is here that Hanging-flower first learned 
of the language of the animals and of the great warrior who had 
been so kind to the beasts and birds of the woods and the fields, and 
who was brought to life by their efforts after he had succumbed to 
the arrows of the Sioux. She learned of the great medicine, ga'- 
no-da, which the animals made of parts of their own bodies and 
gave to the warrior to be used as a cure for all sickness. She was 
thrilled as she listened to the story of Pale-face, the pure youth, who 
started out alone and, wandering through the woods, met the pygmies 
and learned from them the Pygmy or Dark Dance, which, her mother 
had told her, she would herself one day perform. And for many 
evenings in succession, the boys and girls were spellbound as Ringing- 
voice recounted the great story of the foundation of the League, of 
Deganawida and Hayenhwahtha, the great chiefs, who organized the 
League and prescribed the Law and established the Great Peace. 

One night, as they were sitting around the fire, and Ringing-voice 
was absorbed in his tale, Hanging-flower suddenly became aware 
that some one was looking at her. She turned her head and saw 
Straight-as-an-arrow, the tall, slim youth, who was staring at her 
with large wondering eyes. She looked away, and not once during 
the long evening did she turn her head again. 

Evening after evening, while listening to the stories, Hanging- 
flower felt his gaze fixed upon her. She never turned, she was 
afraid even to move, but she knew that his eyes were fixed upon her. 

One night, when the moon was not shining and all was quiet in the 
camp, he came upon her like the wind. Seized with terror, Hanging- 
flower wanted to scream. Her lips parted, but no sound came; her 
heart was beating fast and she lay there in the wet grass, hot and 
trembling. 

When next spring came a baby was born to Hanging-flower. It 
made no sound when it came, for it was dead. On the evening of 
that day, two forms, wrapped in blankets, slipped out of the bark 



102 



American Indian Life 



house; one was carrying a small bundle in her arms. Quietly as 
shadows they glided along the road, until they reached the cemetery 
of the Bear clan. And there the two women buried the little, name- 
less thing that had come unasked for and unwelcome. No one had 
seen them, no one knew; and after a while, Hanging-flower herself 
forgot what had happened. 

VI 

Some time later Rising-sun paid a visit to her sister's village. It so 
happened that the Bean Feast was being held at that time. Rising- 
sun went to the Long House with her sister and her people. There 
she saw Fleet-of-foot, the great runner, and so charmed was she with 
his form, graceful as that of a deer, that she could not take her eyes 
off him. After the feast, Rising-sun spoke to Fleet-of-foot's mother. 
She asked Corn-planter to visit her at the home village. 

VII 

In a little while, Corn-planter came to visit Rising-sun. With 
her hostess she went to the fields where the corn was ripe and the 
women were busy harvesting it. She saw the long rows of bent 
backs, and the green and yellow cobs which would show for an instant 
over the left shoulders of the women, presently to disappear into the 
large baskets on their backs. 

"That young girl in the third row," exclaimed Corn-planter, "seems 
to do work for two. Look how her hands fly through the corn!" 

"It is Hanging-flower," answered Rising-sun, "my daughter. 
And a good wife she would make for Fleet-of-foot, the runner." 

"Let her cook a basket of corn bread," said Corn-planter, "Fleet- 
of-foot will be ready." 

VIII 

That night Rising-sun told Hanging-flower that the time had come 
for her to be married, and that Fleet-of-foot, the great runner, was 
ready to accept her basket of corn bread. Saying not a word, 
Hanging-flower got busy with the corn meal and before morning the 
basket of bread was ready. Hanging-flower started on her way 
early, and by noon she had reached Corn-planter's village. The 
boys were running races when she arrived. With wide open eyes 



Hanging-flower, the Iroquois 



103 



she stood, as Fleet-of-foot rushed by her, as if carried by the wind. 
Hanging-flower shut her eyes . . . and it seemed to her that she 
heard the rustling of the pines; she felt herself lying in the wet grass, 
hot and trembling; and through the mist she saw two shapes wrapped 
in blankets, bending over a nameless thing which they buried in the 
ground. . . . 

When the races were over Hanging-flower saw Fleet-of-foot resting 
on a stump of wood in front of his mother's house. Then she stepped 
forward and placed the basket of corn bread before him on the 
ground. Fleet-of-foot rose and said nothing. He only looked at 
Hanging-flower with a sharp, piercing look and, taking the basket, 
entered the house. In a while Corn-planter appeared in the door- 
way. She invited Hanging-flower to step inside, and Hanging- 
flower had her meal with Corn-planter and her people. The sun 
was still high when she started on her way back and before night- 
fall she reached her village. 

When Hanging-flower fell asleep that night she saw some deer 
running among the trees. One of the deer was larger and fleeter than 
the others. Hanging-flower was trying to catch it. Again and a- 
gain she felt herself flying through the air, in pursuit, but just as she 
was about to seize it, it eluded her. 

In the morning of the following day Fleet-of-foot arrived before 
the house where Hanging-flower lived with her people. As she 
saw him enter, she rose to her feet. In his hand he held a necklace 
of blue and white wampum beads. Presently he took them in both 
hands and placed them about her neck. Then Hanging-flower knew 
that she had a husband. 

The Long House in which Hanging-flower had lived with her 
mother and several other families had been crowded for some time, 
and Fleet-of-foot decided that they had to start a new home for them- 
selves . Many men and women, most of them relatives of Hanging- 
flower, helped the young couple to build a small bark house, and 
before many moons had passed the house was ready and Hanging- 
flower and Fleet-of-foot began to live there. 

As the summers passed, other couples came to live in the house, and 
extensions were built to it, to accommodate the ever-growing num- 
bers. This continued for some time, until the house became a Long 
House, like the others. 



104 American Indian Life 

IX 



When the next berrying season came, a son was born to Hanging- 
flower; and having consulted Spring-blossoms, her mother's mother, 
Hanging-flower gave him the name Glad-tidings. As Hanging- 
flower was lying on her bed and her blood was hot in her, she heard 
the sound of rattles outside and she saw her brother take his turtle 
rattle and join the False Faces, who were passing through the village. 
Hanging-flower knew that Glad-tidings was one day to become a 
chief, and that night she carved a little False Face and hid it in her 
bag, for she had heard the rattles and she knew that some day her 
son was to be a leader of the False Faces. Hanging-flower was 
very beautiful, as she lay there on her bed. Her large black eyes 
were even larger and deeper than usual ; she had looked into the 
future. 

X 

Many summers passed and Glad-tidings had become a strong and 
handsome youth. He was very young, but the older men thought 
him wise and cool-headed. The women were wild over him, but he 
had no eyes for them. He would rather sit with the older men, 
always inquiring about ancient things and eager to learn the laws and 
traditions of his people. 

One day, while Hanging-flower was pounding corn back of her 
house, a piercing sound was heard on the road, gwa-a! gwa-a! 
gwa-a! Hanging-flower shuddered, for she knew that a chief was 
dead. Soon the news came that Power-of-thunder, her brother, had 
been killed by a stray arrow during an encounter with the Sioux. 

Spring-blossoms and Rising-sun were dead and Hanging-flower 
was the matron of her family now. When she heard the mournful 
news, she began to think of Glad-tidings. He was young, but wise 
and strong, and there was no other man in the family who might be 
made chief in his stead. 

In a few days a Council of the family was called by Hanging- 
flower. There were some men at the Council, but mostly women, 
and although some other Bear people were there, most of those 
present belonged to Hanging-flower's family. When they were all 
assembled, Hanging-flower began to speak and as she spoke, all were 
silent. She spoke of Glad-tidings' youth, but recalled the many 



Hanging-flower, the Iroquois 



105 



indications of wisdom and character which he had given, and before 
closing, she nominated her son to be chief in place of Power-of- 
thunder, her brother. 

For many days after this, Hanging-flower was busy calling on the 
other chiefs of her tribe. First she called on those who belonged to 
the brother clans and then on those who were of the cousin clans, and 
when her nominee was ratified by all these chiefs, she brought his 
name before the Great Council of the chiefs of the League, who also 
approved of her choice. 

And so it came that before the corn was gathered in that fall, Glad- 
tidings was made chief in place of his mother's brother. 

XI 

Some summers passed and strange rumors began to reach Hanging- 
flower. First came Full-moon, and in many words told the mother 
that Glad-tidings was suspected of having made a dishonorable agree- 
ment with the Sioux. He had promised, she averred, to exercise 
his influence with the warriors of his people so that they would not 
attack the Sioux while the latter were fighting the Algonquin. 
Then Crossing-of-the-roads came, Fleet-of-foot's brother, and he 
spoke in grave tones about the dishonor that Glad-tidings' act had 
brought upon his people. Day after day, men and women came and 
spoke earnestly and vehemently to Hanging-flower, and the tenor of 
the news they brought was always the same. 

XII 

Hanging-flower was pale and haggard now, and from day to day 
she was losing weight. But one day she felt that she was mother 
no longer, but the matron of her family. She called on Glad-tidings, 
the chief, and standing before him, admonished him in ceremonial 
terms to desist from his shameful ways, which were bringing dis- 
honor upon his people. But should he persist, such were her part- 
ing words, she would call on him again, and then once more, 
accompanied by the Chief Warrior, and then she would depose him 
and he would be chief no longer. 

The days passed and the rumors persisted. Hanging-flower 
called on Glad-tidings for the second time; and when she had spoken, 
he said nothing. In a little while, she called on him for the third 



io6 American Indian Life 

time, accompanied by the Chief Warrior. As both of them stood 
facing Glad-tidings, the Chief Warrior said: "I will now admonish 
you for the last time, and if you continue to resist acceding to and 
obeying our request, then your duties as chief of our family and clan 
will cease, and I shall take the deer's horns from off your head, and 
with a broad strong-edged ax I shall cut the tree down." Having 
spoken thus, the Chief Warrior "took the deer's horns off Glad-tid- 
ings' head," and handed them to Hanging-flower, for from now on 
Glad-tidings was chief no longer. 

Hanging- flower then went to the Council house and informed the 
other chiefs, in person, that Glad-tidings had been deposed. As she 
spoke, her heart broke, for she knew that "the coals had gone out on 
the fire" of her family, and the chieftainship was lost. 

A few days after this, Full-moon called on Hanging-flower and 
informed her in many words that Feathered-arrow, Full-moon's son, 
was to be chief in Glad-tidings' place and that the chiefs of the 
League had transferred the chieftainship to her family. 

In the evening of that day Hanging-flower, wrapped in a blanket, 
went outside of the village. For a long time she stood there, on 
the hill above the cornfields. Her thoughts turned to the past and 
for a long time she was lost in memories. . . . But of the future 
she did not care to think. 

Alexander A. G olden weiser 



The Thunder Power of Rumbling-wings 



The strange events of which I write, took place in the summer of 
1840, when I, then a man in the full vigor of my early forties, 
chanced to be in charge of a museum expedition sent to explore an 
ancient Lenape burial site situated on a hilltop in the northwestern 
part of the State of New Jersey. 

On the tenth day of June we encountered an unusually deep grave 
of circular form, some six feet in diameter, in which, at a distance 
from the surface of perhaps seven feet, we encountered a number of 
slabs of stone piled up in the form of a cairn. 

Removing these with care, we found beneath them a skeleton, 
which, when carefully uncovered and brushed off, proved to be of 
a full-grown man, lying on his right side, with his knees drawn up 
at right angles to his body and his hands near his face. Beside his 
crumbling breastbone lay a tiny mask of stone, bearing two little 
perforations which showed the wear of a suspending cord, and near it 
a knife blade of purple argillite and a small pipe of baked clay, 
bearing a very neat pattern, drawn into its surface with a sharp point 
while the material was still soft. At each side of the skull were the 
chalky remains of some shell beads, rather larger and coarser than 
wampum, but similar in form; while near the feet a little pile of 
neatly-made flint arrow points told of the one-time presence of a 
sheaf or quiver of arrows. 

What archaeologist has not sat upon the brink of a newly un- 
covered, ancient grave and wished that the fleshless jaws before him 
could speak and tell their story? Or wished that he himself could 
be transported backward in time for a brief space to learn some- 
thing of the life of a bygone day? So I sat and so I wished; and 
then we photographed our find as it lay, and removed the specimens 
for safe keeping. 

As the hour was late, we did not touch the bones, however, in- 
tending to remove them upon the morrow, and so we left them for 
the night, still surrounded by some of the stone slabs. 

After dark I bethought myself that I had forgotten to bring in 

107 



io8 



American Indian Life 



my notebook, and recalled that I had left it on the pile of dirt be- 
side the grave, and so, guiding my steps by the flickering flashes of 
lightning from an approaching thunder-shower, 1 made my way 
thither. I remember that I had found the book and had just turned 
back toward the camp, holding out my hand to feel the first splashes 
of rain, when a blinding flash and a violent concussion sent me 
reeling, reeling, down, — into darkness. . . . 

When I came to myself I could see nothing, but I knew it was rain- 
ing steadily; I could hear the drops patter on the leaves; I could 
feel them on my body. 

On my body? I must be naked! I felt my chest, it was bare 
and wet, my arms likewise. What had become of my clothes? I 
felt at my waist; it was belted, and in front hung something like a 
little apron, wet and slimy. My legs? I felt, and found them 
encased in long stockings of some sort, reaching nearly to the hips, 
and I could feel that some sort of supporters ran from them to the 
belt. My feet seemed covered with the same soft stockings which, 
like the apron, felt wet and slimy to the touch. 

As I bent over to feel of my feet, something brushed against 
my cheek, something hard and cold, yet light and almost clinging. 
I put up my hand and felt; it seemed to be a string or rather loop 
of little beads. 

Then I followed up with my fingers and found that the loop, 
with a number of other loops were, somehow or other, firmly at- 
tached to my ear in several different places from the lobe upward. 
I felt around and discovered there were so many of them that the 
top of the ear was bent over by their weight, and the lobe was some- 
what stretched. I felt of each separate loop; each was firmly at- 
tached; and the other ear was in similar shape. I shook my head 
and could feel the swinging weight of them. 

Puzzled, I started to run my fingers through my hair — a favorite 
habit of mine, and found that I had none! That is none to speak 
of — it was very short indeed, almost as if shaven, except for a bristly 
crest like a mule's mane, which ran from front to back over the top 
of my head, and ended in a little pigtail or queue in the back. 

Something moving against my breast as I moved, I felt it and 
found a little hard, cold, oval object slung from a string about my 
neck; near it on another string hung a wet and slimy bag, and what 
felt like a small knife in a sheath. 



The Thunder Power of Rumbling-wings 109 

I was puzzled indeed— I could not make out what had happened 
to me. As I sat thinking, I must have dropped off into a doze in 
spite of the rain, for when I opened my eyes again it was daylight. 

I looked about me; it was still raining and a brisk wind stirred 
the tree tops; but I seemed to be in a strange, wild country for, 
although to my left I could look off over a valley, my eye met nd 
houses, roads, or clearings, just a waste of tossing tree tops, in fact 
no sign of man except a distant blur of smoke, rising apparently from 
among the trees. I looked behind me; there stood a great tree, its 
wood showing white, its bark practically stripped off, while broken 
branches littered the ground. It had been struck by lightning. 

I looked at my hands; they were lean, and tawny in color instead 
of fat and freckled as I knew them; I looked at my legs; they were 
encased in soiled and worn buckskin leggings; upon my feet were 
moccasins puckered to a single seam down the front, near which 
were traces of colored patterns now nearly worn away— and still I 
did not understand. 

I pulled the queue around and looked at it; the hair was black 
and neatly braided, whereas my own, in those days, was red ; I pulled 
around the beads attached to my ears ; they were white and apparently 
made of shell, but were too close to my eyes to see plainly. 

Then I investigated the things hung about my neck, and noted, 
with a start, that the oval, hard object was the little stone mask we 
had found in the grave. I pulled the knife from its sheath; it was 
of stone— argillite— not purple from age, but black, fresh-looking, 
sharp. And when I looked in the bag, I found what I had come to 
expect, the little, decorated pipe of clay, and with it some damp, 
shriveled leaves which must have been some sort of tobacco. 

I could not avoid the conclusion; I was somehow transported back 
into prehistoric times, and had assumed the body and belongings of 
the Indian whose skeleton we had unearthed. 

If this were true, I must have some weapons, I thought, and soon 
I found them— a five-foot, straight bow, lying beneath the broken 
branches that had fallen from the lightning-blasted tree, and a buck- 
skin quiver. I pulled out the arrows; their points were of flint. I 
noticed that the sinew filaments that fastened them to the shafts 
were loosening from the dampness, and I found myself instinctively 
twirling each one between my fingers until the sinew was tight again. 



no 



American Indian Life 



The carcass of a deer lay also among the fallen branches, evidently 
a victim of the bow. 

I noticed that I was feeling hungry so I slung my quiver, picked 
up my bow, and then, after a moment's hesitation, shouldered the 
deer and started down the hill toward the smoke. 

After a while I found a trail leading in the right direction; this I 
followed until I reached the brink of a bluff from which I could 
plainly see the roofs of a number of bark houses above which rase 
the naked limbs of dead trees, making a strong contrast to the living, 
green forest all about them. 

As I looked, I heard voices of people ascending the hill. I slipped 
into the bushes with my burden, out of sight but where I could peer 
out. The voices belonged to a number of men, apparently setting 
forth upon the hunt, armed with bows like mine. I noticed most 
of them wore leggings and moccasins of more or less the same shape 
as my own; that their hair with a few exceptions was cut like mine, 
and that they wore in their ears either strings of beads like mine, or 
tufts of downy feathers. And I noticed with surprise that I could 
understand, perfectly, their language. 

From all this I judged that they must belong to the same tribe as 
myself and that it must be safe to proceed, so, after they had passed, 
I stepped from my hiding-place and went on down the hill and into 
the village. 

The first thing to strike my eye was a big, rectangular, barn-like 
wigwam which stood near the middle of a large open square or 
plaza, the roof made of sheets of bark held in place with poles, and 
pinned at the ridge with two smoke holes. The sides were of logs; 
the door, which occupied the middle of the end facing me, was closed 
with some sort of curtain. 

About the plaza stood fifteen or twenty smaller houses of similar 
form, but from a half to a quarter the size; these had but one smoke 
hole in the roof; and the sides, like the roofs, were of bark. 

Some of these roofs were extended forward to form a sort of porch 
in front of the wigwam; in other cases a separate little shed stood in 
front, provided with a bark roof of its own, but open on all sides. 
From these sheds and porches rose a haze of blue smoke wafting a 
savory smell. 

Beside me, at the edge of the plaza, stood one of the dead trees, 
the bark of which had been girdled round; and I could see blackened 



The Thunder Power of Rumbling-wings in 



stumps where others had stood; while many such dead trees rose 
stark and naked from the garden patches about the village. I found 
out later that, in clearing land for village or garden, the custom was 
to chop the bark around the trees so that they died, to let them stand 
until thoroughly dry, then to fell them with the aid of fire and, 
splitting them up with wedges, use them for wood as needed. 

Seeing some women standing beneath a shed from which came a 
hollow, thumping sound I made my way thither. Suddenly one of 
the group darted out from under the shed and came running toward 
me with a glad cry. "Oh Flying-wolf! So you have come back 
safe to me after all!" she exclaimed, grasping me affectionately by 
the arm and leading me toward one of the wigwams. "So the 
Mengwe did not get you after all! I am so happy!" 

Thinking that this must be the wife of the man whose body I had 
taken, and that I must say something, I remarked, "Yes, I have 
really come." 

"Ah!" she said with concern, looking up into my face, "how 
hungry you must be! I cooked your favorite stew against your 
return last night, but you did not appear, and the boy and I never 
touched it; I can warm it for you in just a little while. Hang the 
deer on the tree in the old place and go to your bed and rest until 
I have it ready; you must be tired. Or wait," she added, "I will 
spread a fresh mat I finished yesterday. 1 ' 

She passed into the wigwam and I followed, to find myself in a 
dwelling, the most noticeable feature of which was a pair of wide 
platforms or benches, one along the wall on each side, raised some 
two or three feet above the floor and covered with mats. Back of 
these benches or bunks, the wall was lined with colored mats; and 
the space beneath them was filled with assorted bags, baskets and 
bundles, while from the roof hung other bags and bundles, and a 
string or two of corn, the ears braided together by the husk. Behind 
the poles supporting the roof, was thrust a half-finished bow; near 
it hung a bundle of sprouts intended, probably, for arrows. 

The woman spread a fresh mat on one of the platforms. "Lie 
here," she said, "I will build the fire inside here instead of out in 
the shed ; our house feels damp after the rain." 

I watched her as she went out, and saw her taking down some 
large object from a shelf in the shed, and by the time I had stretched 
myself on the mat she returned with a large, egg-shaped, earthen pot, 



112 



American Indian Life 



and set its pointed end between three stones placed for the purpose 

in the fireplace in the center of the wigwam, and began to stir the 
ashes with a long stick. Finally she uncovered some live coals, left 
from the night before, and gathering them in a heap with her stick, 
she placed some fibrous stuff, which looked like shredded cedar bark, 
upon them and began to blow into it. Soon she had a lively blaze, 
which she fed with small sticks until it was well started. 

Pulling the fire about the base of the pot, she soon had it bubbling, 
and, before long, set before me a wooden bowl of steaming, savory 
stew of meat, corn and beans. Beside the first bowl she placed an- 
other, containing flat dumplings, which proved to be made of 
crushed, hulled corn flavored with berries, rather heavy but 
delicious. 

On the edge of the stew bowl hung a short, wide, wooden spoon. 
As I ate, she sat on the edge of the bench just opposite me and chatted 
happily of this and that, rarely pausing for an answer— for which 
I was thankful. 

Between mouthfuls, I looked her over. She was a comely young 
woman of twenty-five or thirty, ever showing her even, white teeth 
in a smile, her kindly face as yet but little weather-beaten. Her 
black hair was neatly parted in the middle and brought back and 
fastened at the nape of her neck with a sort of long, cylindrical knot 
which was wrapped in beads; several short loops of beads hung from 
the rims of her ears where there were evidently, as in my own case, a 
number of small perforations, while each lobe showed a hole perhaps 
a quarter of an inch in diameter. About her neck were many strings 
of beads of different sorts; some looked to be of dried berries or 
seeds; others of bone, while some were certainly of shell, and one 
string looked like copper. 

The upper part of her plump body was naked but for these beads; 
from her waist hung a skirt of buckskin reaching below the knees, 
neatly fringed and bearing a wide, embroidered border with an 
intricate design in colors; it was evidently a flat, robe-like piece 
wrapped about her waist, belted taut, and the top edge folded down 
over the belt. Her legs were covered by leggings, her little feet in 
moccasins, both leggings and moccasins being of deerskin and em- 
broidered with what I afterwards found to be dyed deer hair and 
porcupine quills. Both wrists were wound with strings of beads. 

As I ate, she talked on: "Your mother was over yesterday from 



The Thunder Power of Rumbling-wings 113 



the Pulling-corn village. She says she is making you a fine robe of 
four soft, dressed deerskins, and is decorating the back with a large 
picture of your Guardian Spirit, the mask being done in the little 
shells she bought from those southern tribesmen who came up the 
river in that big canoe — you remember. She gave them in exchange 
her whole stock of healing herbs, and had to work like a beaver to 
dig another lot of the little roots before winter set in. 

"She says she is going to sew each little shell on separately — you 
know each has a little hole rubbed into it — so that even if one breaks 
loose the others will not come off. Talking of trading, when are 
you going to get me that pair of Cherokee shell ear-pins you promised 
me? That old Shawnee woman in Possum-ground village has some 
and there is not another pair in Lenape land. See, I have stretched 
the holes in my ears on purpose for them. 

"And speaking of making things, when are you going to finish 
that big, wooden bowl for me? You brought the maple burl home 
long ago, yet you only have it partly burned out, and there it lies 
beneath the sleeping birch, and right by it is a whole basket full of 
little slabs and pieces of sandstone for grinding it smooth. 

"I know you have no flint scrapers, but don't you remember you 
buried a lot of half-finished arrow points and little blocks of flint 
to keep them fresh, just outside one corner of the shed? They 
ought to be moist enough to work easily and you could make all the 
scrapers you want in a little while. 

"The reason I need it now is because our son took the big old 
feast bowl out to play canoe with, the other day when I was not 
looking. It was all right until three or four other little boys tried 
to stand in it, too, all at the same time, then it split and is ruined. 
It made me feel sad because that was the bowl that grandfather made 
for mother when she and father built their first wigwam. I shall 
have to borrow another bowl for to-night." 

During all this I had said as little as possible, for I did not want 
to show my ignorance of all these things. I could not bear to spoil 
her happiness and let her discover that I was not really her husband. 
Now, however, I ventured to inquire, "What is going to happen to- 
night?" 

"I forgot to tell you," she replied, "last night when you were away, 
our war chief came to see you with a number of the elders from 
here, and other villages. They are going to get up a big war party 



H4 American Indian Life 

to punish the Mengwe who, you know, are getting too bold. You 
remember how one of their scalping parties killed my poor brother 
last year when they caught him alone out hunting; and how they 
killed your friend Breaker but a few moons ago. Last night when 
you did not come home I feared they had got you. 

"The war chief says you know more about those trails to the north 
than any other Lenape — that is of our Unami tribe — and they want 
you to lead the party. Everybody said they had full confidence in 
your judgment and your bravery. 

"I hate to have you go because it is so dangerous, and our son and 
I need our hunter yet a while, yet," she smiled sadly, "I am proud of 
my warrior too ; the tribe needs you, and the ghost of my poor brother 
cries for vengeance. 

"I told them to come again to-night and so they will be here I 
suppose. They spoke of bringing our tribal head chief, too. I 
was looking for women to help me cook for them, among that party 
pounding corn in that arbor, when you came into the village." 

As she finished, I realized that the crisis had come; I could 
keep my secret no longer. I had not enough knowledge of tribal 
affairs to talk with the delegation, let alone lead a war party. I 
must tell her the truth, or at least that part of it I felt she could 
understand. 

So I said to her. "Listen, my mate. You have been so glad to see 
me come home that I have hated to spoil your joy. But something 
happened to me last night — I know not what— and when I awoke 
this morning I found I had forgotten everything I ever knew. I did 
not even recognize my own clothing and body; I did not know my- 
self to be Flying-wolf until you named me. I found my way to 
this village by accident, and know you to be my wife only by your 
actions; and at this minute I do not remember your name. Of our 
life I remember only the language; as for leading a war party, 
making a wooden bowl, or even hunting meat for you, all are equally 
impossible. I could no more do these things than a blind puppy, 
not because I do not want to do them, but because I have forgotten 
how. 1 ' 

She slid off the bench and coming straight across the wigwam 
grasped me by the shoulders with her two hands and looked full 
into my eyes. "Is this true, Flying- wolf ?" she asked. 

"Yes," I choked. 



The Thunder Power of Rumbling-wings 115 



She stepped to the door and looked out for a while in silence; 
when she turned to me again her cheeks were wet. "Perhaps," she 
said, "if you should see your son whom you always loved so, your 
memory would come back." 

She went out. Shortly she returned with a bright-looking little 
lad about eight years old, his long, black hair hanging loose, his 
lithe body naked except for a little string about his neck where hung 
some little bones which my experienced eye recognized as those of 
a turtle. 

"Father," he cried, "why did you send mother after me? I was 
having such a good time down at the creek with the boys — we were 
.playing Thunder-Beings hunting for horned water-serpents." 

I laid my hand on his head and said, "All right, son, then run right 
back there and play." I met his mother's questioning eyes, and 
shook my head. 

After sitting in a miserable silence awhile, she asked : "Where did 
you awake this morning?" 

"On that hill over yonder,'" I replied, pointing, "under a tree. I 
would know the place again because the wood of that tree shows 
naked and white, half the bark has been torn off by lightning. It 
must have been struck lately because the broken limbs lying about 
it are still green." 

"Now I know what the matter is," she cried, springing to her feet. 
"You have been struck by one of the Thunder's arrows. And I 
know who can help you." She darted out. 

She returned with a fine-looking elderly man whose long, iron- 
gray hair hung loose upon his shoulders, except for one little braid 
at the back, to which were tied several fine, large, eagle feathers, 
white with black tips. From the outer corner of each eye a blue 
line, apparently tattooed, ran zigzag down across his cheeks to his 
chin; on his naked breast was tattooed a rude but striking figure 
of a bird with wings spread, surrounded by many other zigzag lines. 
Here hung suspended from a string that passed around his neck, 
a tiny model of a war club, its ball-like head painted red. 

"This is Rumbling-wings," said my wife. "If any one can help 
you, he can." And so I told him my story as I had told it to her. 

He pondered for a while, then turned to my wife. "Run down 
to the spring, Whispering-leaves," he said, "and get us some fresh 
water." When she had disappeared with the bark bucket, he said, 



n6 



American Indian Life 



"I think I understand what the matter is. Flying-wolf, whose body 
you occupy, must have been killed or stunned by the Thunder arrow, 
and your spirit, which must have been floating near, took possession 
of his body. Where you come from I know not, but you must have 
been thinking of us and our time, when your spirit was driven from 
its body by another Thunder arrow. Whispering-leaves must not 
know this — that her real husband may be dead. 

"What can you do? You can either make up your mind to live 
out your life among us and learn to be what she expects of her 
husband, or you can go to that same hilltop with me some day, and 
I will call back the Thunders to set you free again. Then maybe, 
if your own body has not been destroyed, you may return to it, and, 
perhaps, Flying-wolf's spirit, if it has not already gone to the Land 
of Ghosts, will come back to this body. It is all a chance. To- 
night when the elders and chiefs come, lie in your bed here as if 
sick in body and say nothing; I will explain to them. As to what 
you want to do, think about it as long as you wish and when you 
decide, let me know. In the meantime learn all you can and take 
care of your mate and the boy." 

Just then Whispering-leaves (I was glad to learn her name!) came 
in with the water, and the old man dipped a gourdful for me, then 
drank himself. "Thanks, daughter," he said to her, "your husband 
has been struck by lightning and his memory is very sick. Be good 
to him, and little by little it will come back. But do not expect too 
much of him at first. If you run short of food let my wife know. 
And you, Flying-wolf," said he, "whenever you want to learn some- 
thing come to my house. I am alone every night." He went out. 

I looked at Whispering-leaves and she at me; hope shone in her 
face, she smiled. The more I looked at her, the better I liked her. 

The first night I visited Rumbling-wings, his wife, after spreading 
a mat for me, withdrew, murmuring something about visiting a 
neighbor for the evening. I had learned by this time the Lenape 
amenities, and so I did not start boldly off with my questions, but 
chatted quietly of this and that for a while, finally winding up with, 
"Why did my wife go to you when she heard I had been struck by 
a Thunder arrow? Why do you think you can call the Thunders 
to set my spirit free?" 

"You are asking a hard question, my friend," said Rumbling- 
wings after a moment's cogitation, "and one which a Lenape does 



C 



The Thunder Power of Rumbling-wings 117 



not like to discuss with another. But I realize that you have been 
cut off from the years of early training that most of our boys go 
through, and the only way I can make you understand is to tell you 
outright, and I feel that my Guardian Spirit will forgive me. 

"In the first place, you know what the Thunder-Beings are — 
powerful spirits, helpers of the Great Spirit — in form at the same 
time man-like and bird-like. They bring the rain to water our crops 
and refresh the earth. You have often heard the rumbling of their 
wings in the storm, and have seen their arrows of flame shoot toward 
the earth as they hunt the great horned serpents and other man- 
destroying monsters which form their daily food. And it was one 
of those very arrows which, as you know, started you in life as a 
Lenape. 

"Well, I suppose I must tell you, one of these Thunder-Beings 
is my Guardian Spirit and that is why people say that I am in league 
with the Thunder, and have Thunder power, and why they call on 
me in cases like yours. 

"The Thunders must have picked me out for their favor even 
before I was born, as you will realize when you hear how I come 
by my name of Rumbling-wings. 

"It appears that my mother confided to her brother, my uncle, 
that she was expecting me, and according to our custom she asked 
him to take particular notice of any dream he might have, in hopes 
of finding out the child's name. . Not long after, he was overtaken 
at night, far from his village; it was black and stormy and he took 
refuge beneath an overhanging rock. He found a spot fairly dry, 
but rough and uncomfortable, and he fell into a troubled sleep. 
Sometime in the night he was awakened by something, he knew not 
what, and found himself sitting up, listening. He heard a distant 
rumbling of thunder among the mountains which seemed at last to 
take the form of words : 'Rumbling-wings is coming, Rumbling-wings 
is coming.' . . . All this he told my mother, and I was born 
shortly after. 

"When the time came for our great autumn ceremony in the Big 
House — that large wigwam in the square you passed, coming here 
to-night, is one of them — my uncle took me in his arms and, standing 
before the centre post with its great, carved face of 'Mising' looking 
down upon me, he announced to the people that my name was 
Rumbling-wings. Even as he spoke there was a crash of thunder, 



n8 



American Indian Life 



late as it was in the moon-of-falling-leaves, and a wind sighed 
through the trees about the Big House, and they heard drops of rain 
patter upon the bark roof or fall hissing through the smoke holes 
into the two great fires below. 

"Perhaps Whispering-leaves has told you how our people be- 
lieve that after the birth of a child, its navel string has much to 
do with its disposition; so, if a girl, they take that string and bury it 
under the house or in the garden to make her fond of home duties; 
or, if a boy, they hide it out in the woods so he will like the hunt. 
Well, my father, so he told me, took mine to the wood, and hid it in 
a hollow tree. He had hardly done this when a thunder-shower 
came up and drove him to shelter; coming back on his way home he 
found the tree, where he had hidden my navel string, burning. It 
had been struck by a Thunder arrow. 

"As a boy I knew nothing of the Thunder power except that when 
the great, black clouds fringed with yellow, began to pile up in the 
west, and others, young and old, looked upon them with dread, I 
alone of the village felt no fear. In fact I used to go out naked 
into every storm; the crash of thunder was as music to me, the bright 
flashes were beautiful, the pelting rain refreshed me. And, in truth, 
I do this yet, always stretching out my arms to my Guardian to thank 
him for having helped me thus far along the trail. 

"But I did not know who my Guardian Spirit actually was until 
I had seen some twelve or fourteen snows. About this time my 
parents began to act strangely and to speak crossly to me. I did not 
understand why I deserved such a change in their feelings, and 
many a time I felt alone in the world. They even gave me the 
poorest part of the meat they had to eat, and scraps and leavings 
of corn bread, and stew that had begun to smell sour. 

"One morning I was awakened before dawn by some one punching 
me in the ribs with a stick — well I remember how it hurt — and I heard 
my father say, 'We must drive this wretched boy away from here, 
I can not stand him any longer. Get up from there, dog-like!' and 
he punched me again. My mother who had always until lately 
taken my part in any dispute, took no notice, but bent over the fire- 
place, and soon a little fire began to flicker and finally filled our 
wigwam with light. She went to the water jar just inside the door, 
and I saw her dip into it our oldest, blackest, greasiest gourd cup. 
Then she turned to me and her face, usually so kind, seemed hard 



The Thunder Power of Rumbling-wings 119 

as flint. 'Drink, boy,' she ordered, handing me that cup, and I won- 
deringly obeyed. 

"Then my father spoke, handing me a burnt and shriveled shred 
of meat no larger than his little finger— a piece full of dirt and grit 
where it had fallen to the floor. 'Eat this, miserable brat,' he cried, 
'and get away out of my sight.' 

"A sudden anger overcame me and I flung the morsel full in his 
face and darted for the door. 'Wait,' I heard him say, 'aren't you 
going to blacken your face? And besides I was going to tell you 
the rest of it, that you must not come back until you bring with yow 
something great, but you started out too quick!' Did I see a fleeting 
smile on his stern face? Surely his eyes were twinkling! 

"Then it dawned upon me what the matter was; I was expected 
to fast for power, and all this seeming abuse was nothing but a sham 
to make Those-above-us take pity on me as an outcast, suffering 
child, and grant me a vision from which I would gain a Guardian 
Spirit that would be my protector through life. Often had I heard 
older boys speaking of such things, but I had never realized that I, 
Rumbling-wings, was expected to go through the ordeal. 

"Then said my father, 'It seems to me I have heard that some boys 
who were driven away from home, had to go up on Wolf mountain 
to the east end where there is a little cave that was nice to lie in while 
they prayed, because they could look out over the tops of the trees 
to the river and the hills beyond. Besides,' he added, 'I expect to 
go hunting up that way early to-morrow morning and I shall look 
into that cave to see if any one is hidden away there.' 

"Then indeed I understood, and so under his direction, with my 
mother looking on, I rubbed my face with charcoal and, throwing 
about my shoulders the oldest and raggedest robe I could find— the 
one the dog had been using for a bed beneath the sleeping bench— 
I set out. 

"All day I lay hungry in that little cave while mosquitoes and 
deer-flies from the woods, and fleas from the dog's robe bit me un- 
mercifully. Yet I looked out over the valley as calmly as I could, 
praying to Those-above-us to take pity on me; yet nothing happened, 
except that when the day was nearly spent, a cloud came up behind 
me over Wolf mountain and overspread the sky, then went away 
grumbling without letting fall a drop of rain. That night, still 
hungry, I slept a troubled sleep and next morning, before sun up, in 



I2 o American Indian Life 

came my father with a little scrap of meat and a small gourd of 
water As I drew out the cob stopper and drank, he asked me, 'Have 
you found anything yet?' When I replied 'No,' he took the bottle 
and departed. 

"The same things happened on the two following days, and 1 got 
weaker and weaker from hunger, yet saw nothing but the black cloud 
every afternoon. 

"But on the afternoon of the fourth day when the cloud came 
again it brought rain, and heavy thunder, and this, strange as it 
may seem, lulled me to sleep. And in my sleep I dreamed that I 
stood naked and alone on the bare sand-hills by the Great-water- 
where-daylight-appears, with nothing but a wooden war club, with 
its round head painted red, in my hand. And as I stood arrows 
came flying through the air from every direction and whispering 
past my head, struck quivering into the ground about me. But not 
one touched me, and my heart was unafraid. 

"At this point I was awakened by an unusually loud crash of 
thunder and I opened my eyes to see the shower moving off across 
the valley, carrying with it a bow of beautiful colors and followed 
by the rays of a lowering sun. 

"Somehow I felt satisfied then that I should go home; it was 
useless to linger longer in the cave. And so I started, staggering 
from weakness among the wet bushes on the mountain side. 

"Weak as I was I nearly lost my footing, crossing the swollen 
creek, but at last I reached our village. The people looked curi- 
ously at me as I entered and made my way toward our wigwam. 

"My father was sitting in front, scraping the charcoal from the 
inside of a wooden bowl he had been burning out; some one called 
to him, or perhaps he heard my step, and he looked up. 

" 'Have you brought it with you, son?' he asked. On my reply 
that I had a dream he seemed very well satisfied and called to my 
mother who was looking out of our door. 'Wife, sweep and fix 
a place for our son to sit-he is bringing it with him! Mother 
bustled about then and swept, and smiling, spread a fresh mat for 
me - I was surprised at her air of deference. Down I sat, and after 
the'sun had gone beneath the edge of the world, she brought me a 
great bowl of stew, steaming and delicious, and a new, clean gourd 
of fresh water. 



The Thunder Power of Rumbling-wings 121 

"That evening they really treated me as a guest. Father even 
filled a pipe for me, and then, when my mother's deep breathing 
from her place on the sleeping-bench told us that she slumbered, he 
asked me outright, 'What animal spirit or other Manitou has offered 
himself to be your helper?' 'I do not know,' I answered, and then 
I told him my dream, fearing in my heart that he would think it 
meant nothing. 

" 'Son', he said when I had finished, 'you have done better than I 
dared to hope, you have indeed gained a powerful friend among 
Those-above-us, no less a personage than one of the Thunders!' 
And when I asked him how he knew, he replied, 'The wooden war 
club with a round head painted red is the emblem of the Thunder- 
Beings, and represents the fearful blows they strike. The fact that, 
while you held this club in your hand, the arrows did not wound 
you, means that your Guardian Spirit, the Thunder, will protect 
you. Don't you understand?' 

"All that night in my dreams I was struggling and fighting, with 
whom I know not, but through it all I heard myself singing, 

In my trouble 

In my trouble 

I call upon my Helper 

And his answer 

Out of a dark sky 

It comes rumbling, 

It comes rumbling! 

"And this ever since has been my war song, and the song I sing 
at our great autumn ceremony in the Big House, where all who 
have been so blessed sing of their visions." . . . 

"So that," I said, as Rumbling-wings finished, "is why you wear 
that little, red, war club hanging about your neck! Now tell me 
why I carry a little stone face in the same way. I have tried to take 
it off several times, but Whispering-leaves will not let me." 

"That," replied the old man, "represents Misinghalikun, the 
living Mask-Being, and a powerful Manitou he is, for the Great 
Spirit has given him control of all the wild animals of the forest. 
He is the Guardian Spirit of Flying-wolf, whose body you occupy, 
but I cannot tell you the story of his vision. No one could tell you 
that story but Flying-wolf himself. And where is he? You oc- 



I2 2 American Indian Life 

cupy his body, but I doubt if Misinghalikun will help you as he did 
him I believe Flying-wolf won his great fame as a hunter through 
the power of this Guardian Spirit, and without that, you may have 
a hard time to live up to his reputation." And, I must say, so I 

found it. . . 

Another evening I asked Rumbling-wings if his Guardian Spirit 

ever helped him in later years. 

"Many times, and I will tell you some instances. When I had 

seen about twenty snows, I went with some of our kinsfolk to visit 

the Minsi, our allies living above us on Lenape River and in the 

mountains to the north and east of us here. You may have heard that, 

although their language is quite a little different from our Unami 

tongue, they too call themselves Lenape and their customs are almost 

the same as ours. From there we went with some of these people 

eastward across the mountains to see the Great River of the Mahicans 

of which we had often heard. Arriving at the river, we wished to 

cross to visit a Mahican village just opposite, but, although we made 

a signal smoke, no one dared put out from the village with a canoe 

to get us because there was a high north wind and the wide river 

was very rough. So I burned tobacco and prayed to my helper, 

the Thunder, and soon thunder-clouds arose in the west, and a west 

wind sprung up which killed the north wind and left the river 

smooth ' and then the Mahican canoes came for us. We spent many 

pleasant days in their village, feasting and dancing, and visiting from 

one wigwam to another. Their language is very much like the 

Minsi, and enough like ours so that we could understand almost 

everything. . 

"Another time a war party of us Lenape set forth against the 
Susquehannocks, a tribe like the Mengwe. They lived on Muddy 
River in a big village circled about with a great stockade of 
sharpened logs, twice as high as a man, set on end almost touching 
one another. Time and time again we attacked them, but could not 
break through this stockade, nor could we pile fire against it to de- 
stroy it, so well did their bowmen defend it. 

"At last we withdrew a little way to counsel and our war chiefs 
said to me, 'We must depend on you, Rumbling-wings, to help us 
overthrow this people who have harassed us so long. Call on 
your Guardian Spirit; help us to take this village!' 



The Thunder Power of Rumbling-wings 



123 



"And so, as there were no thunder-clouds in sight, I drew from 
my medicine bag a few scales of the Great Horned Serpent and 
laid them on a rock beside a little creek. You know how the Thun- 
ders hate these great snakes, and always begin to gather, the instant 
one of them shows any part of himself above the water. Well even 
these scales seem to attract them; I always use these scales to call 
the Thunders when I need them. 

"Immediately the sky began to darken in the west — so I built a 
little fire, threw an offering of tobacco upon it, and prayed to my 
Guardian. 

"Blacker and blacker grew the sky, nearly as dark as night. We 
could hardly see the yellow scud flying overhead beneath the mass 
of cloud. The air near the earth seemed hot, choking. All at once 
a few great drops of rain splattered down, and then we heard the 
roar of a mighty rain approaching across the forest. Soon it was 
pouring down about us like a water-fall. 

"How long this downpour lasted I know not, but it stopped as 
suddenly as it began, and a few large hailstones fell, so large that we 
could hear them rattle on the bark roofs of the village. Then came 
a deeper roar out of the southwest, louder and louder, nearer and 
nearer. Suddenly a great thing rushed past us in a cloud of flying 
leaves and broken branches, and struck the village with a crash, full 
in the middle, and in a moment was gone. As it passed on we saw 
it; it looked like a great, twisting strand of long hair hanging from 
the clouds and dragging along the earth, sweeping before it the trees 
and the wigwams. 

"The instant it passed, we saw that the log stockade was down and 
most of the houses of the village, but just then came another blinding 
flood of rain which held us back, and when we finally reached our 
goal we found a number of the Susquehannocks lying dead amid the 
ruins of their houses; and of those who were left alive and able to 
run, all were in flight somewhere in that rain-swept forest. 

"As to the wounded, we dispatched those too badly hurt to take 
with us, and seized the rest as captives, and then, with all the weapons, 
pipes, beautiful clothing and ornaments we could carry, we made 
our way homeward. Thus the Thunder, my Guardian Spirit, 
helped me, and helped me to raise my name to what it is to-day. 
"What finally became of the captives, do you ask? A few we 



124 



American Indian Life 



killed by torture, in revenge for what their people had done to us; 
some died; some we let go free after a year or two; others finally 
intermarried with our people and cast their lot with us. You know 
Traveling-everywhere's wife? She was one of those captives, given 
as a servant to his parents. She was but a young girl, and Travel- 
ing-everywhere, himself but little older, took pleasure in teaching 
her to speak our Lenape language. They got to liking each other so 
well that they finally built a wigwam of their own. Now you could 
hardly tell her from one of us." 

I found it much easier to assimilate these beliefs and stories than 
to learn the every-day, practical side of Lenape life, at which I 
proved a tragic failure. Although I studied the methods of ex- 
perienced hunters I never could master the knack of effective shoot- 
ing with the bow and arrow. And I tried my best. Seldom could 
I bring down a deer. The neighbors grew tired of providing meat 
for me and my family. 

Whispering-leaves did her part to perfection; everything she made 
or produced was of the very best, which made me feel my short- 
comings all the more. And she would not let me touch the garden — 
the only thing I knew anything about. "Garden work is not manly," 
she would say. "I will not endure hearing the neighbors talk about 
my mate doing woman's work. How would you feel if you saw 
me going out of the village with a long bow on my shoulder? Or 
burning out a log for a canoe? Would you not feel shame to see 
your mate do an unwomanly thing? In our life, the man and woman 
must do each his or her part and neither is harder than the other. 
Surely to hunt all day and every day, good weather and bad, is 
fully as hard as wielding the hoe! How would you like to hear 
the neighbors say, 'Whispering-leaves ought to give Flying-wolf the 
skirt, and she put on his long leggings and breechclout?' " 

I was even a failure at finishing her wooden bowl, although I had 
watched a number of men making such things and thought I had 
learned their method. I heaped hot coals on that maple burl, blew 
them until they burned deep, and scraped out the charcoal with 
shells and bits of flint again and again, until I thought I had it hol- 
lowed deep enough. Then I ground it patiently with bits of gritty 
sandstone. When I had finished, I thought I had accomplished a 
very good piece of work for a beginner. But Whispering-leaves, 



The Thunder Power of Rumbling-wings 125 

although she smiled and said sweet words when I laid it finished 
before her, and pretended to think it perfect, tucked it away after 
a few days, and when we had visitors and a big bowl was needed, 
she borrowed another bowl from the neighbors. 

What hurt me worst was seeing her treasured finery disappear 
bit by bit, doubtless traded for meat and for skins to make our moc- 
casins and every-day garments. First it was the seed beads, then those 
of bone, then one string of shell beads after another until only the 
copper Deads were left. Finally they too were missing when I came 
home one night. One day I had occasion to search beneath the 
sleeping-benches for something and had to pull out the square basket 
in which she kept her treasures, her prettiest embroidered, festival 
attire. The basket felt so light that I looked into it— and found it 
empty. 

Often the boy came in crying and said that his little companions 
would not let him play with them because, they said, his father was 
"no good." 

And one night Rumbling-wings told me that he had seen the spirit 
of Flying-wolf in a dream the night before, and that he said he was 
living in a strange land and wanted to come back to his home. 

But the crisis came when I returned one night, tired out from my 
fifteenth successive fruitless day's hunting, and found my Whispering- 
leaves crying bitterly. Although I begged her to tell me what the 
trouble was she refused, but at last she broke down. "My dear 
mate," she sobbed, "there is nothing to eat in this house, and there is 
no hope for anything, unless I sell that robe your mother made for 
you. All my pretty things are gone long ago, and all yours except 
that." 

I caught her to me and held her tight in my arms for a moment, 
then dashed out into the night straight to Rumbling-wings' wigwam. 
"I am ready," I said. ... 

When I came to myself I was lying beneath the lightning-riven 

tree. 

It did not take me long to find my place again in the modern 
world; but always to this day, when the clouds pile up and the thun- 
der begins to mutter in the west, I think sadly of my lost Whispering- 
leaves and of my friend Rumbling-wings and his Thunder power. 

M. R. Harrington 



Tokulki of Tulsa 



TOKULKI was born in the Muskogee town of Tulsa, in the central 
part of what is now Alabama. Like all other Indian babies of that 
region he first saw the light in a brush shelter some distance back 
from his mother's home; for were he to be born in the latter it was 
thought misfortune might fall upon all its occupants. His name be- 
longed to the Wind clan of Tulsa, and means two persons running. 
When the first bearer of the name was born, his father was absent on 
a war expedition during which he frightened two of his enemies who 
were on scout duty, so thoroughly that they ran off in haste, leaving 
their weapons in his hands. It was in commemoration of this event 
that the new-born babe received his name. 

Tokulki's mother was waited upon during her period of seclusion 
by her own mother and another old woman of the clan, reputed most 
skillful in midwifery. Although it was late in the autumn this old 
woman took the infant immediately to the bank of the river and 
plunged him into it, after which he was strapped securely into a 
cradle, made of canes, by means of bark cords about the shoulders and 
thighs. Here Tokulki spent the next few months of his life, some- 
times carried on his mother's back, sometimes propped up against the 
wall of the house while his mother was engaged in her household 
duties. But whenever he was so placed, the cradle was allowed to 
rest upon a panther skin, for his father and his uncles had all been 
famous warriors and it was expected that he would follow in their 
footsteps. Therefore he must have that about him which would 
communicate a warlike essence and make him fierce and bold. 

Tokulki passed through the period when his principal experience 
of life was that there was something in it that gave him food and 
warmth, which was "mother," and when there was something light 
in which dark objects moved, or something dark in which light ob- 
jects moved. There was one particular light object that he gazed 
upon continually, and which resolved itself into the house door, and 
another, red and hot, which he saw when he awoke at night and which 
resolved itself into the house fire. 

127 



128 



American Indian Life 



The home into which he gradually came to consciousness was the 
winter house of his family. The framework was of hickory poles, 
set in a circle of perhaps twenty-five feet in diameter, with their 
slender ends gathered together at the top and supported by a central 
element of four wooden columns. Interwoven with this were thin, 
flexible pieces of wood plastered thickly with mud mixed with 
dry grass, and the whole covered inside and out with mats. 
The floor was excavated a couple of feet below the general level of 
the ground, and a shallow trench dug about it a little farther back, so 
that water would be carried off without entering. The doorway 
which had so early attracted Tokulki's attention was to the east where 
the first rays of the sun could steal into it, but it was seldom that it 
found any one but very young babies to awaken, for the duties of the 
day were assumed early and ended soon, except in times of merry- 
making or the great ceremonials. There was no vent for the escape 
of smoke which sometimes accumulated to an extent which would 
render the inside unendurable to a white man; but this was partly 
provided against by the judicious selection of wood, — old sticks of 
oak and hickory which would fall apart with little smoke, and leave 
a glowing bed of coals to radiate heat during much of the night. 
Around the walls of the house was a continuous seat made of matting, 
raised a foot and a half to two feet from the floor and covered with 
bearskins upon which most of the household slept. 

The household consisted of Tokulki's father and mother, a brother 
and sister, his mother's mother, a married sister of his mother, her 
husband and two children, a younger brother of his mother, and an 
old man of the Wind clan, not closely connected with the family but 
making this his temporary home. More important in Tokulki's life 
than most of these, was an old man, living a short distance away, but 
a frequent visitor in the cabin, a man whom we should call "mater- 
nal uncle" in English; yet he was "uncle" not only to Tokulki and 
Tokulki's brother and sister and the children of his mother's sister, 
but to a large number of other boys and girls— boys and girls whom 
we should not consider related in the least. Tokulki, however, as 
he grew older, learned to call them "elder brothers," "younger 
brothers," and "sisters," and he learned that most of these were called 
"Wind people," like himself, but that some were called "Skunk 
people," and some "Fish people." 



Tokulki of Tulsa 129 

While still on his mother's back, Tokulki was taken down to the 
river every morning, and his mother dashed water over him and 
over herself even when the weather was bitterly cold. One of his 
earliest memories was of this cold douche after his warm night's rest. 
All of the inhabitants of the village except a few of the sick and 
decrepit, took this morning bath, the men and boys plunging in, the 
women and children contenting themselves in cold weather with a 
little splashing. 

And it was the "uncle" of each band who saw to it that none evaded 
this regulation. He was always present, encouraging the smaller 
boys, scolding the timorous, and sometimes correcting the unruly 
by means of a stout stick. As he did so he poured good advice into 
their ears, and Tokulki soon learned that his "uncle" was the man to 
whom he must appeal in time of trouble, whose approbation he must 
win, and whose displeasure he must be careful to shun. Often, on 
winter evenings the uncle would gather his "nephews" and "nieces" 
together and instruct them, and he would tell them in particular of 
the deeds of their ancestors, sometimes assisting his memory by means 
of little strings of beads, or by referring to notches cut in sticks. 

But when the old people were talking with one another, Tokulki's 
mother would by no means allow him to go near them, and some- 
times, when his curiosity had gotten the better of him, she would 
box his ears soundly. In after life Tokulki learned that this was 
not because such behavior was considered disrespectful of the old 
people or annoying to them, but because old people have uncanny 
powers and may bewitch a child who hangs about them too closely. 
There was not much temptation to do this except in winter, for 
during the rest of the year the elders would be working or talking 
apart by themselves, or the old men would be in the square. 

This "square" loomed larger in Tokulki's life the older he grew. 
It was only a short distance from his home. He was not allowed 
to play there, but he could walk all around the edge, marked by a 
ridge of earth which had been piled up by successive scrapings of 
its surface in preparation for the ceremonials. Near its western end 
were four long, narrow buildings plastered with mud and outlining 
a hollow square with entrances at the corners. They were open in 
front, and each was divided into three equal sections by transverse 
walls, which did not, however, reach to the roof. The middle 



!3o American Indian Life 

section of the western cabin was slightly different, in that the back 
part was separated by another wall parallel to the walls of the build- 
ing, and, closely shut up in the room thus formed, Tokulki knew that 
the' ceremonial pots, rattles, drums, the dried medicines, and all of 
the most sacred possessions of the tribes were kept. In front the 
town chief or miko and his principal councilors had their seats. 
On the northwestern edge of the grounds loomed the tshokofa, the 
indoors council house, constructed precisely like a winter house 
except that it was very much larger. To the eastward extended a 
wide, open space kept bare of grass by intermittent hoeing and the 
pressure of many feet. In the middle of it rose a ball post, and at 
the farther corners stood two shorter posts where captives taken in 
war were burned. Almost every morning Tokulki could watch the 
leading men of his town assemble in this square, and between the 
buildings catch glimpses of the medicine-bearers carrying asi (an 
infusion of ilex vomitoria) in conch shells to regale the councilors. 
All that they had in their stomachs they forthwith ejected, that they 
and their minds might both be clear for the matters about to be 
discussed. 

Frequently Tokulki accompanied his mother when she went in 
quest of firewood, or he would sit on the edge of the garden patch 
while his mother, his grandmother, and the other women of the 
household were at work, and sometimes he was given the temporarily 
congenial task of driving off crows. This garden was planted princi- 
pally with pumpkins and beans, but most of the corn was in the great 
town garden farther off from the village, and thither all of the 
people marched in the spring, headed by their miko, with hoes made 
of hickory limbs over their shoulders, to prepare the ground for 
planting. Each household had its own patch separated from the 
rest by a narrow strip of grass, but the work was in common: first 
so-and-so's strip, next some-one-else's until all was completed. After 
that it was largely the duty of the women and children to keep weeds 
down and drive away birds, and there were little watch-houses on 
the edges of the fields for the accommodation of the guardians. The 
days when all worked were as much holidays as days of labor. The 
participants began early but worked only until shortly after noon. 
Then they partook of their principal meal in common, and after 
that there was usually a ball game followed by a dance around a big 



Tokulki of Tulsa 



131 



fire in the square, the light of which was reinforced by cane torches. 

The ball game was usually played about a single post, though not 
the one in the square-ground, and it was indulged in by both men 
and women, who played against each other, the women throwing the 
ball with their hands, the men with their ball sticks. Single tallies 
were made by striking the pole above a certain mark, but five points 
were counted if the carved bird which surmounted it was touched. 
Sometimes, however, the men played their own game, a game similar 
to lacrosse except that two small ball sticks took the place of the 
one large one. Each side strove to bring the ball home to its own 
goal, marked by two straight poles set up a couple of feet apart, and 
twenty points constituted a game, ten sticks being stuck into the 
ground by the scorer of each side and then drawn out again. In 
dividing up, the Wind, Bear, Bird, Beaver, and some other clans, 
called collectively "Whites," played against the Raccoon, Fox, Po- 
tato, Alligator, Deer, and certain others who were known as "People- 
of-a-different-speech." But these games were only practice games, 
or make believe games. The regular games were always between 
certain towns, and they were very serious matters conducted with 
the deliberation and ritualism of a war expedition. Each game was 
preceded by careful negotiations: the players fasted and were 
scratched with gar teeth, they enlisted the aid of the supernatural by 
employing a medicine man, they marched to the appointed place as 
if to meet an enemy, wagered quantities of property on the result, 
and conducted it so energetically that serious injuries were sometimes 
inflicted. 

In winter Tokulki's mother and the other women busied them- 
selves making baskets and mats, twisting bison hair into garters for 
the leggings, and weaving cloaks — worn only by women — out of the 
inner bark of the mulberry. In the summer they made pottery and 
dressed skins, and the preparation of food kept them busy, of course, 
at all seasons. They must prepare their own flour by pounding the 
corn in a wooden mortar, at which they sometimes worked two and 
two. Sometimes they would relax their labors long enough to play 
a sort of dice game in which sections of cane took the place of our 
bits of bone. The men spent most of their winters seemingly to less 
advantage, much of it in smoking and recounting to one another 
tales of their hunting or war excursions, humorous sketches frequently 



132 



American Indian Life 



revolving about the Rabbit, and sometimes myths of a more serious 
and sacred character. However, they devoted many hours in the 
aggregate to the repair of their hunting and fishing outfits, and to 
the manufacture of axes, arrow points, and other articles of utility, 
material for which had been laid aside during the preceding fall. 

When Tokulki was able to run about freely by himself, his uncle 
made him a blowgun out of a long, hollow cane which he provided 
also with cane arrows with their butt ends wrapped in thistledown. 
He sent him out to try his skill upon the birds and smaller game 
animals, and more than once Tokulki came home proudly with birds, 
squirrels, and even an occasional rabbit. A little later they made 
him a bow and arrows, with which he attacked rabbits, and wild 
turkeys, and upon one happy occasion, he succeeded in creeping 
near enough to a young deer to dispatch it. He came home in tri- 
umph to his mother, telling her where the animal was to be found, 
and listened to the praises of his entire household, particularly those 
of his uncle, with flushing cheeks. 

Upon this Tokulki's father and uncle began to instruct him in the 
arts of woodcraft. They took the head of a deer and placed splints 
inside of it so as to restore it as nearly as might be to its original shape, 
and showed him how to use it in stalking the living animal. They 
taught him how to make traps for the smaller animals, and where 
game was to be found. They also taught him that a piece of flesh 
must be cut out of every deer that was killed, and thrown away so 
that the deer might not be offended and leave the country. They 
taught him that he must not cast bones of game animals far off, when 
they fed them to their dogs, lest the animals afterward become shy. 
He was told that a sprig of old man's tobacco must be put under every 
fire made by the hunting party so that malevolent spirits would not 
follow them. Still later he was to learn about certain medicines and 
formulae to insure success in the chase. 

As soon as spring came, hunting of a somewhat desultory charac- 
ter began, but the families did not move far from town until after 
the annual ceremonies were over and the corn had been harvested,, 
unless driven to it by famine, or drawn to certain points on the rivers 
by runs of fish. During this time Tokulki accompanied a hunting 
party to the bear preserve, a section of forest not far from Tulsa 
where bears were numerous and which was the common property of 



Tokulki of Tulsa 



133 



all the citizens. When the party approached a tree in which a bear 
had been located, Tokulki stood at one side to watch the method 
of procedure. He saw that one man climbed into a tree not far 
from that containing the animal they sought, and was given blazing 
slivers of pitch pine which he threw successively into the tree den. 
When its occupant was driven out, he was quickly dispatched by 
the hunters disposed below. The meat was distributed throughout 
the town for immediate consumption, but the fat was tried out and 
poured into bags made of whole deerskins which were then packed 
away for the winter season. Meanwhile, the women were hunting 
through the forests for roots, particularly groundnuts and the roots 
of a smilax which they called kunti. They also collected the seeds 
of a pond lily; a little later a profusion of berries enables them to 
vary their diet. 

In April the miko called his leading men together and shortly 
afterwards was held the first ceremony of the season accompanied 
by fasting and the drinking of the red willow and button-snake root. 
At the time of the corresponding full moons in May and June, similar 
ceremonies took place, but these were merely in preparation for 
the great Fast (poskita), the culmination of the Southeastern re- 
ligious season. And so it was that about the middle of July a mes- 
senger appeared at Tokulki's home, and delivered to the house chief 
a little bundle of sticks tied with deer sinew. Before handing it 
over, he drew one stick from the bundle and threw it away. Every 
morning thereafter the house chief did the same until but one stick 
remained and" on that day the ceremony began. Similar bundles 
were carried to every household of Tulsa Indians far or near, all 
of whom synchronized their movements in such a way as to converge 
on the square-ground at the time appointed. Failure to come in 
then was both impiety and treason, and it was severely punished by 
the warrior class known as tastanagalgi, who would handle the 
absentee severely, and destroy or confiscate his property. 

The poskita was the type of all the ceremonials of the tribes of the 
Southeast. The active participants were those men who had been 
on war expeditions and had received new names in consequence, 
names usually ending hadjo, fiksiko, imala, tastanagi, or yahola, 
and containing often the names of the clan animals, the towns of the 
Creek confederacy, or even foreign tribes. Generally speaking, the 



134 



American Indian Life 



miko and the members of his clan sat in the west cabin, the "second 
men," or henehalgi, who were devoted to peace, in the south cabin, 
the higher classes of warders on the north, and the common warriors 
on the east. Each cabin or "bed" contained from two to four 
"honored men," retired warriors who constituted the inner council 
in charge of the ceremony. This poskita was distinctly a peace cere- 
mony when old enmities were forgotten, all but the most heinous 
crimes pardoned, and new resolutions made for the ensuing year. 

At least one day was devoted to feasting, but after that a rigid 
fast was observed by all the active participants. Then those who 
had performed brave actions received new names and new war 
honors, while novitiates were shut up in the tshokofa and a strict 
fast was imposed upon them preparatory to their admission into the 
class of warriors and induction into adult life. During this cere- 
mony, too, all of the fires, which were supposed to have become 
corrupt from contamination with worldly things during the year, 
were extinguished, and a new fire was lighted by the "Medicine 
Maker," the high-priest of the town, in the most impressive manner 
by means of the common fire drill. This new fire was first used to 
replace the fires in the square-ground and the tshokofa, and after- 
wards it was taken to one side of the square where the women stood 
ready to receive it and carry it to their several homes. The rituals 
extended over eight days, and on the last, just at sunset, the men 
marched in single file to the river, led by one of the Fish clan 
bearing a feather wand, and all plunged into its waters. They re- 
turned in the same order, the miko made a short farewell address, 
and the ceremony was over. 

From this time until the harvest had been gathered in, Tokulki's 
people, and most of the others, did not stray far from town. In 
October was a sacred ceremony called the "Polecat dance," and 
afterward the people began to scatter rapidly for their fall hunting. 
Some proceeded to their camps overland, the women serving as 
beasts of burden ; but the greater number, including Tokulki's family, 
had their hunting lodges near the rivers and reached them by means 
of canoes made of single trees, fire-felled and fire-excavated. Some 
parties went as many as seventy-five or a hundred miles from home, 
especially when they desired to hunt the woodland bison. This 



Tokulki of Tulsa 135 

season was devoted especially to the preparation of quantities of 
dried venison against the coming of winter. 

When game was plentiful, a series of merry-makings were indulged 
in. This usually began with the presentation of a ball, made of 
buckskin, to one of the men by his sister-in-law, who at the same 
time intimated that she desired venison, bear meat, or occasionally 
squirrels. Upon receiving this challenge, the man communicated 
the intelligence to all of the other men in camp and they set out on 
a grand deer, bear, or squirrel hunt as the case might be. Meantime 
the women busied themselves pounding corn, or perhaps kunti roots, 
into flour and preparing various sorts of dishes. When the men 
returned they also took the meat in hand and a great feast followed, 
with a ball game of the single pole type, and a dance to close the day. 
They would light a great fire and two men would station themselves 
near it, one with a drum made by stretching a deerskin over an 
earthen pot or cypress knee, the other with a gourd rattle, while 
the dancers went around the fire, usually sinistrally, in single file 
or two-and-two, under the charge of one or two leaders. The dances 
were usually named after animals, real or imaginary, and the steps 
and other motions were supposed to be in imitation of them. The 
men did most of the singing. 

After a few days there would be another presentation of a ball 
and the same feasting, ball playing, and dancing would follow, and 
this was frequently kept up until the weather was very cold. 

Sometimes sickness came upon a member of Tokulki's camp, and 
then Tokulki's mother's younger brother, who was doctor of the 
band, and at the same time Medicine Maker of the town, would be 
called in. Before prescribing, such a doctor often consulted the 
kila, or "knower," who seems to have combined the functions of 
prophet and diagnostician, but Tokulki's uncle never did this be- 
cause he united the two functions in himself. Having determined 
the nature of the disease, he would go in quest of various herbs, or 
sometimes send members of the household after them. These he 
put into a great pot, poured water over them, and placed the pot 
over the fire. After the contents were sufficiently heated, he gave it 
potency by breathing into it through a hollow cane, while repeating 
a magical formula. This was done four times, the doctor meantime 



136 



American Indian Life 



facing east. Sometimes, however, he prescribed sweat bathing in 
a lodge made of blankets thrown over poles, and containing heated 
rocks on which water was poured, and sometimes he declared the 
trouble was caused by witchcraft which he proceeded to cure by 
sucking the witching object out of the affected part by means of 
a bison horn. 

If, in spite of all his efforts, death supervened, all of the people 
in that house and in the neighboring settlements began shouting and 
making loud noises so that the soul of the deceased would not stay 
about the dwelling but start upon its journey to the country of spirits. 
They removed the body to the house in town, wrapped in dressed 
deerskins and, after wailing over it, buried it in an oblong trench 
about four feet deep, excavated beneath the floor, lined with cypress 
bark, and covered with sticks upon which a thick layer of mud was 
plastered. The face of the deceased was painted red, he was seated 
facing the east, his most important implements, such as his bow and 
arrows, his war club, his paints, his pipe and tobacco pouch, were 
buried with him, and for four days the women of his family bewailed 
his death with loud howlings. The faces of all the mourners were 
painted black. The hair of a widow was unbound for four years, 
she discarded all ornaments, and was compelled to absent herself 
from all merry-makings. At the fourth poskita she was formally 
released by her husband's sister and either provided with a new 
husband from the same clan— or clan connection— or set free to 
marry whomever she chose. For a widower the period of mourning 
was only four months. 

The medical practices of his uncle possessed a fascination for 
Tokulki who was present whenever he was tolerated. He had seen 
similar performances in the square-ground at the time of the annual 
ceremonies, and his mind, which had a mystical bent, eagerly fed 
upon them. 

At intervals during all this time Tokulki had seen bands of war- 
riors, including sometimes his father and uncles, march out against 
their enemies, and in particular there was an enemy to the westward, 
not large in numbers but led by a chief of rare size, strength, and 
sagacity, whose activities were constantly more threatening, and 
who was aided and abetted by a much more numerous people beyond 
him called Long Hairs. At last, raids from this quarter became 



Tokulki of Tulsa 137 

so numerous and so many injuries were suffered that a great council 
was held in Tulsa and it was determined to draw their settlements 
closer together and erect a strong stockade about them. Tokulki, 
although still too young for the heavier work, was called upon to 
render such assistance as he could in the completion of the structure. 
While the older men marked out the course of the wall and planted 
in the ground good-sized tree trunks a few feet apart, Tokulki and 
the other young men brought together numbers of long, flexible 
branches or young trees which they wove from one post to another, 
covering the whole with a plastering of mud. About a hundred 
feet apart little watchtowers were raised above the top of the wall, 
projecting forward slightly in order to defend the intervening spaces 
against attempts of an enemy to scale or burn them. On the river 
side there was but one row of palisades, but elsewhere it was doubled. 
Toward the river, too, was the only opening, made by allowing the 
walls slightly to overlap. To approach this an enemy must creep 
along a narrow path between wall and water, exposed to certain 
death should he be discovered. 

About two years after this fort was completed, Tokulki went upon 
his first war expedition. The "uncle 1 ' of his group was to be one of 
the party, and took this occasion to initiate his nephew into the 
cardinal tribal institution, man-killing, the one great avenue for the 
attainment of personal glory and social standing. The leader of 
the party was to be none other than the tastanagi lako, the head 
warrior of the town, and therefore when he sent out to drum up 
volunteers there was a great outpouring of the ambitious youth of 
the nation. For four days they remained shut up in the tshokofa, 
fasting, taking war medicine, dancing, and singing war songs to 
lash themselves up to the proper degree of martial fury. Each was 
provided with a war club, a bow, and a quiver of arrows, a shield 
of cane or bison-hide, and a sack containing fire sticks, paints, and a 
slender ration of parched corn meal. The ceremonies completed, 
they set out quietly in single file very early in the morning. With 
them they carried a sacred box made of splints which was usually 
borne on the back of the chief's assistant, and at every camp was 
placed upon a log, or hung upon a tree or post. Among other things 
it contained some of the painted bones of an enormous panther 
which the ancestors of this people had slain on their way from the 



138 American Indian Life 

far western country, and a part of one of the horns of an aquatic 
horned serpent. On occasion it was believed that this box gave 
forth oracular utterances, informing the party in what direction to 
proceed, or warning them of an attack. 

On this occasion the spirit guardian appears to have been favorable, 
for they surprised four outlying camps of their enemies, took a 
dozen scalps, and carried off fifteen women and children as captives 
besides two grown men whom they subjected to the death penalty by 
fire. During this action Tokulki had the good fortune to save the life 
of the war chief's servant by engaging an enemy, about to strike him 
from behind. Therefore, after the triumphant return, he received 
the much coveted feather headdress, his first war name, and a seat 
in the eastern cabin of the square. 

He had stepped upon the first rung of the social ladder and could 
attend all but the most secret and important meetings to decide the 
actions of the nation. It was not long before he received another 
name and left the cabin of the tasikaias for that of the imalas at 
the east end of the north cabin. Later deeds entitled him to the 
rank of tastanagi, the highest war grade, but being by birth a member 
of the white Wind clan he was assigned instead to a seat of honor in 
the peace cabin on the other side. 

In spite of his prowess, however, Tokulki took less pleasure in 
warfare than most of his companions. He had, as we have noted, 
a mystical type of mind. The great ceremonies had a powerful 
influence over him, and the practices of his uncle, the Medicine 
Maker, proved a constant fascination. Blessed with a retentive 
memory, he rapidly picked up a fund of tribal lore which presently 
attracted the attention of the old men,— the custodians of the sacred 
legends and the keepers of the rituals. They talked earnestly about 
him with the Medicine Maker, as of one to whom his people might 
look for spiritual leadership in future days, and at his uncle's sug- 
gestion he and three other of the most promising youths of the Wind 
connection agreed to undertake the young men's poskita, "the first 
degree in medicine" if we may so term it. 

Calling these youths into his house the Medicine Maker talked to 
them earnestly and then made an appointment to meet them at a re- 
mote spot in the forest, on the bank of a small stream away from the 
frequented trails. At the time and place agreed upon, he presented 



Tokulki of Tulsa 



139 



himself before them and directed them to make a sweat lodge by the 
bank of the rivulet. Then he began his instructions, going over as 
much of his more elementary knowledge as he thought they could 
grasp at one time, and, when he returned to his house, telling them to 
memorize all he had said carefully, until the fourth day, after when 
he would visit them once more. He repeated his visits and instruc- 
tions at similar intervals for the better part of a month when he was 
satisfied with their progress and told them to go back to their homes. 
"Now," he said, "you understand how to heal wounds made by ar- 
rows and are entitled to wear buzzard feathers in your hair." 

This degree was taken by Tokulki shortly after his first war expe- 
dition, but for some time other events interposed to prevent the con- 
tinuation of his initiation. In the first place his family had decided 
that it was time for him to take a wife and assume a position in the 
tribe as the responsible head of a household of his own. He fell in 
with this arrangement as part of the natural order of things, and con- 
sequently his mother, accompanied by two or three of her clanswo- 
men, visited the "uncle" of the Raccoon clan to which the chosen girl 
belonged. The recipient of the visit was not unaware of the offer 
about to be made and had called to his house some of the other lead- 
ing men of his clan, the mother of the girl, and, as a matter of cour- 
tesy, her father. A few days thereafter the Raccoon people returned 
the visit and formally announced that the suit was accepted. The 
wedding might have been consummated then and there, by conduct- 
ing the groom to his betrothed's house and holding a feast and dance, 
but Tokulki and his parents were ambitious to have him reach a high 
position in the tribe as soon as possible, and accordingly they delayed 
the ceremony until he could erect a house, garner a crop of corn, and 
lay by a supply of venison. 

Word was sent to all of the male members of the Wind clan resid- 
ing in that town to go into the forest and bring together a supply of 
poles, bark, bark rope, and other articles sufficient for the proposed 
house. The planting season was beginning, and when the town field 
was laid out, an extra plot was sowed for the new household. When 
this was ready to harvest, a corncrib raised on posts was put up near 
the site of the projected dwelling, and filled from Tokulki's new plot. 
The harvest being over, and the days cool enough for comfortable 
work out-of-doors, the men of the Wind clan came together again 



140 



American Indian Life 



and appointed a day upon which the new house was to be raised. 
This work was carried out much like an old New England husking 
bee. It was placed under the direction of the one considered most 
skilled in such matters who assigned the various processes to all the 
rest. They worked with such a good will that it was practically 
complete by the middle of the afternoon. Afterward a common 
meal was served followed by a game of ball and the usual dance after 
dark. Sofkee, prepared like our "hulled corn," stood ready in pots 
at the service of any of those present. 

A little later Tokulki went hunting and brought back dried venison 
to add to his winter's stores. It was only then that he and his bride 
were brought to their new home, where a final feast was partaken of 
by all together, speeches exchanged by the leading men of the Wind 
and Raccoon clans, and the new couple left in possession. 

During this period Tokulki was too busily occupied to think of his 
earlier ambitions, but after his first child was born and the routine of 
his new life had become well established, they began to recur to him. 
He communicated his thoughts to the three young men with whom he 
had been associated before, and he found that they too were prepared 
to continue in their course. They approached the Medicine Maker 
again, and again submitted to the fasts, the sweat baths, and the re- 
peated instructions, more rigorous now than before. This time they 
learned among other things the treatment proper for snake bite, and 
how, as they believed, to detect objects clearly on the darkest nights. 

Tokulki was still unsatisfied. Every fresh revelation awakened 
new ambitions. His companions, however, were content with what 
they had acquired and with the prestige they had attained, and were 
wearied with the long and exhausting fasts. Therefore when To- 
kulki presented himself as a candidate for the third degree he went 
entirely alone. In fact, so rigorous was the ordeal to which he was 
at this time subjected, that he debated within himself whether he 
should not stop there. As it was, he had penetrated farther into the 
mysteries than all except ten or a dozen men in the fifty allied Musko- 
gee towns. 

He allowed two years to slip away before making up his mind to 
undertake the fourth and crowning ordeal. Finally, however, he set 
himself to the task, and he came triumphantly through, though the 
periods of fasting were doubled, and the memorizing more severe 



Tokulki of Tulsa 



141 



than any which he had before experienced. He returned to his 
house a mere shadow of a man, with hollow cheeks, sunken eyes, and 
almost fleshless bones, but with a position and influence in the Nation 
shared by none except the Medicine Makers of a few of the leading 
towns. 

With the Medicine Maker of Tulsa, his instructor and uncle, To- 
kulki now came to be on the most friendly terms. It was natural that 
a man of such advanced mentality as Tokulki and such steadfastness 
of purpose should excite interest in his superior. It became evi- 
dent that when the Medicine Maker died or gave up his spiritual 
headship his position would fall to Tokulki. Many were the talks 
which the two men had together, talks in which the older man un- 
folded whatever knowledge his long life of physical activity and 
spiritual contemplation had given him. Some was not new to To- 
kulki, some had been suggested to him by the other learned men, but 
much was novel and strange. 

The world envisaged by the Tulsa sage was about like this: The 
middle earth which mankind knows, is flat and square and lies afloat 
upon "the wide white waters." There is a world above it and a 
world below it, and these are inhabited by beings like ourselves. 
Below are those left behi-nd when the races now on earth found their 
way to its surface; above, those who had lived on earth but, having 
undergone the experience called death, had traveled westward, 
crossed a narrow point in the ocean stream, upon a foot log, and 
either remained with the malevolent spirits in that quarter or as- 
cended to the fortunate region directly overhead, presided over by 
Hisakita-imisi, "the breath holder." The white streak in the sky 
which we call "the milky way" was said to be the very road which 
they traversed. Unavenged souls of those who had been killed in 
wars, however, were unwilling to begin their journey until scalps 
from the offending tribe were brought in, and meanwhile they re- 
mained about the eaves of the houses, moaning. Some said that bad 
spirits were reincarnated into beasts, but about this men differed. 
However, they were agreed that human beings might acquire such 
malevolent power as to become witches and assume the forms of ani- 
mals while still living on earth. Their evil dispositions were attrib- 
uted to lizards who had taken up their abode inside of the witch, but 
might be expelled by the proper medical rites. 



142 



American Indian Life 



The stars were thought to be attached to the under surface of the 
solid vault above, along which the sun and moon traveled each day. 
An eclipse of the sun was usually attributed to a great toad who might 
be frightened off by hostile demonstrations on the part of human 
beings. To an eclipse of the moon people paid little attention. The 
moon was inhabited by a man and a dog. The rainbow was a big, 
celestial snake which had power over rain. 

The world and all that it contained were the products of mind and 
bore everywhere the marks of mind. Matter was not something 
which had given birth to mind, but something which had formerly 
been mind, something from which mind had withdrawn, was quies- 
cent, and out of which it might again be roused. This mind was 
visibly manifested in the so-called "living things," as plants, and, still 
more, animals. Nevertheless, latent within inorganic substance no 
less than in plants and animals, was mind in its highest form, i. e., hu- 
man mind. This might come to the surface at any time but it did so 
particularly to the fasting warrior, the "knower," and the doctor. 
Indeed, the importance of these two last lay in their ability to pene- 
trate to the human life within the mineral, plant, and animal life of 
nature, and bring back from that experience knowledge of value in 
ordering the lives of their fellow beings. Not that mind was attrib- 
uted to one individuality, but that it was recognized as everywhere of 
the same nature. 

Its manifestations were not in all cases equally powerful. Its 
manifestation in the panther, bear, and bison was more powerful than 
its manifestation in the raccoon, the rabbit, and the squirrel. Some 
"inorganic" powers, — as, for instance, the wind, the rivers, and the 
sea, — were, however, even more powerful. Peculiarly powerful 
were the thunder and the lightning, which were produced by two 
sets of animals. The dangerous kind, the kind that "struck," was 
made by huge birds from whose eyes flashed fire, and this they flashed 
down at the other fire-producing creatures, enormous, horned ser- 
pents, who in turn shot the blue, harmless lightning upward. Bones 
of these earth serpents were sometimes found after a rainstorm. 
Besides there were long serpents who lived in the waters and who, 
rearing their huge lengths straight upward at intervals, would allow 
themselves to fall over with a gigantic splash. There were the 
sharp-breasted snakes, suggested to native imagination by the tracks 



Tokulki of Tulsa 143 

of lightning, snakes supposed to run straight along the surface of the 
ground, cutting through roots and bushes as they went. There 
were bodiless snakes which rose whirling into the air on still morn- 
ings. There were creatures like bison which went by fours, each 
resting for a minute in the tracks of its predecessor. There' were 
very little people who sometimes deprived travelers of their senses, 
and very big people who ate them. 

Besides the embodied power in nature there was power not alto- 
gether differentiated from it, which was unembodied, or indistinctly 
conceived as embodied. This power could be invoked by the use of 
charms and the repetition of certain formulae. "By a word" wonder- 
ful things could be accomplished; "by a word" the entire world 
could be compressed into such a small space that the medicine man 
who was master of the word could encircle it in four steps. It was 
power of this kind which was imparted to medicines, yet the source 
of this power was after all the anthropomorphic powers, which, at 
the very beginning of things, declared what the diseases were to' be 
and also appointed the remedies to be employed in curing them. 
But when the doctor had prepared these remedies and placed them in 
a pot in front of him, they were not efficacious until he had repeated 
the prescribed formulas, or prayers, four times, while breathing into 
the medicine through a hollow cane. In this way the spirit that 
made the medicine powerful passed into it through the breath of life 
in the doctor. 

From this conception it came about that the supreme being of the 
Creeks, a kind of sky god, was known as Hisakita-imisi, "the breath 
holder." While he did not necessarily interfere actively in the re- 
lations between the lesser powers and mankind, his primacy was 
recognized, and they were spoken of as his servants; he was their 
miko. 

What took place for the individual in time of sickness happened 
for the entire tribe annually at the time of the poskita. It had been 
given to men by Hisakita-imisi for their health and for the annual 
renewal of the life of the tribe, as well as the individual lives of 
those composing it. The square-ground fire was but a detached 
fragment of the sun, the sky fire, and both of these meant life, for 
both were necessary to the lives of men. The renewal of the' fire 
was the renewal of life, an act by means of which, the connection 



I4 4 American Indian Life 

between human Jives and the life of the universe was restored, and 
the corruption, which had accumulated about the fire obtained the 
previous year, gotten rid of. Similarly the participants were 
cleansed internally by means of the poskita medicines, one of which 
was to make good the defects of the system and heal its diseases, the 
other to insure the enjoyment of positive benefits. Hence it was 
that a little of each was carried home by every household and hung 
up by the door, some of it being used occasionally in medicines until 
the next annual ceremony. 

As to the origin of things, the Muskogee had obscure traditions. 
They believed that the solid land had come from the expansion of 
a bit of earth brought from the edges of the world or from the bottom 
of the ocean. They also told of a flood, but their story of human 
origins did not concern any tribes except their own and a few believed 
to be related closely to theirs. They thought that after their ascent 
from the world beneath at the point in the far west called "the 
navel of the world," they had traveled toward the southeast for a long 
time, led by their Medicine Maker, who, in turn, was guided by a 
staff' stuck upright in the ground every night and found inclining in 
the direction to be taken every morning. In the meantime, four 
"light beings" from the corners of the world had brought the knowl- 
edge of the poskita to them and had lighted their first poskita fire 
During this period, ties of friendship sprang up between the several 
Muskogee tribes, and some that were not Muskogee. Two of the 
leading tribes, the Kasihta and Coweta, formed an agreement by 
which they were to play ball with each other at intervals, but were 
never to fight and as other towns or tribes became allied with these, 
they also became allied in the ball games until there came to be two 
classes of towns with about twenty-five on a side. Those headed by 
Kasihta were dedicated to peace and those headed by Coweta to 



war 



Qne day— it was toward the end of summer— Tokulki and the 
Medicine Maker strayed some distance eastward of the town and 
sat down upon the side of a hill, where the older man reviewed the 
more important oarticulars of his teaching more impressively than 
ever before. After a time he paused, and then he said: 1 have 
told you all that I know; this is what the Medicine Maker who was 
before me, and all of the knowers and the doctors have told me. It 



Tokulki of Tulsa 145 

must be so. I believe it. Yet perhaps it is not all the truth. I 
think we are not to understand some of the things that they tell 
just as they sound; they have another meaning. Sometimes we 
can see what this other meaning is ; sometimes we can not. Perhaps, 
too, like the poskita fire, it has become fouled by much contact with 
common things, by much repeating. Perhaps Hisakita-imisi did 
not tell our grandfathers all that he had in mind to tell. But much 
of it is good, and it is for the good of our people. So use what 
seems to you good! And the rest you need not use. And if Hisa- 
kita-imisi seems to tell you something that is better, if you think it 
is better for your people, use it! It is what he must have intended 
from the beginning. I tell you this because I feel that your times 
will not be like my times. The plant dies. In the spring the plant 
comes up again. It is the same plant, and yet it is not the same 
plant. It is like, but it is unlike. 

"Have you not heard of the people who come across the wide, 
white water in canoes with wings? Even now I hear that a great 
number of them are marching through our country and that they are 
coming in this direction. Maybe the old things are to pass away." 
He stopped, and just then out of the east came a low noise, a noise 
strange to that country until then, but one which a white man of the 
time would have recognized as the discharge of a harquebus. It 
was a harquebus in the army of De Soto. 

John R. Swanton 



Slender-maiden of the Apache 



SLENDER-MAIDEN was to have her dance in twelve days. The acorns 
were now ripening along Ash Creek; the stags, their horns fully 
grown, were taking on fat; thunder-showers were now falling, and 
the year was at its best. During the preceding spring, Slender- 
maiden's mother had noted her daughter's approach to womanhood. 
The winter before, Slender-maiden's father had gone to the moun- 
tains beyond Black River and hunted for half a month. The best 
of the deerskins had been carefully tanned and put away. On Cibicu 
Creek, a day to the west, lived a man noted for the fine buckskin 
suits he could make. Slender-maiden's father took four of these 
dressed deerskins and two of his best horses to this skilled man. The 
horses were given him for his work on the skins. Slender-maiden's 
father was told to come for the garments about the time corn showed 
its tassels. 

Slender-maiden's mother and Slender-maiden herself were Worm- 
wood clan. Many women of this clan lived in the neighborhood 
and they gladly agreed to help gather food for the feast. Slender- 
maiden's father was of the Adobe clan. His brothers promised to 
join him before the dance, in a hunt which should provide venison 
for the feast. There was, fortunately, a large number of horses 
belonging to the family with which those who sang the songs and 
directed the ceremony might be paid. 

Slender-maiden's father rode up the creek to the marsh where he 
cut a supply of reeds. Of these he made tubes, which he filled with 
tobacco and tied at right angles, making crosses. These were sent 
by Slender-maiden's cousin, a young man but recently with a beard 
to pluck, to the medicine man living on Eastfork who knew the songs 
of Naiyenezgani, used for the dance of adolescent girls. When the 
young man arrived at the home of the singer he placed the cross on 
his toe. As the old man reached for the token he asked the young 
man from whence he came. 

'T am Wormwood clan and I come from the valley of dancehouse. 
Slender-maiden's father, my uncle, asks that on the twelfth day you 

147 



148 



American Indian Life 



sing for his daughter under the cotton-woods on Ash Creek. He 
sends you this deerskin, these beads of turquoise, of jet, of white stone, 
and of red coral. Besides he gives you a horse, and a saddle from 
Old Mexico." 

"Sit, my grandchild," said the singer to the young man. The old 
man then filled his pipe and passed his buckskin bag of tobacco to 
the young man. "Call my brothers," he said to his wife before they 
began smoking. When they had gathered and the pipes were burn- 
ing, the singer told the young man's errand and that their aid was 
required in the ceremony. Food was now brought and the young 
man was served. 

A similar invitation was sent to a medicine man on Turkey Creek 
who knew the dance of the Gans. 

A few days later the women of Slender-maiden's clan and those 
living in her camp loaded their burros and horses with the food for 
the feast and the necessary utensils. The sun was well up when they 
were ready to start, and by sundown the party camped when they 
reached a stream where oaks grew in profusion, about two-thirds 
of the way to Ash Creek. By noon the next day, camp was made 
under the cotton-woods in the valley of the creek. 

The day before the dance was to be held a sweat lodge was built 
near the stream. In this dome-shaped lodge, parties of six and 
eight men went repeatedly for baths. The songs of Naiyenezgani 
were sung and the men were purified by the steam and heat. At 
midday, food was served to all those who had gathered in the vicinity. 

Just before the sun rose the next morning, four blankets were 
spread, one above the other, and a cane, bent at the top, was stood up 
just east of this bed. Near the cane was placed a basket of shelled 
corn. 

The singer from Eastfork with his chorus of young men formed 
a line just back of the western end of the bed. Slender-maiden now 
appeared and took her place in front of the singers, facing the rising 
sun. As the songs were sung in proper order Slender-maiden danced, 
swaying her body from side to side. When the proper song was 
reached, she knelt and moved from side to side on alternate knees 
with her face always toward the rising sun. Soon she lay prone on 
the bed and was molded to a form of beauty by her matronly attend- 
ant. Finally she was prayed for by all the assembled spectators who 



Slender-maiden of the Apache 



149 



passed in line behind her and put pollen on the crown of her head. 
When the sun was about halfway to the middle of the sky she ran 
the appointed race and the morning ceremony was completed. 

Every one was soon served with meat and soup. 

That evening at about sunset a man without clothes, except a 
breechcloth, his body painted white with black stripes, appeared 
at the dance-ground and by signs inquired if a dance were in progress. 
On being told that was the case he ran away to a secluded spot. Soon 
peculiar noises were heard and the sound of rattles. Four men came 
in single file followed by a painted clown. The four wore moccasins 
and kilts below the waist but were painted black above with symbolic 
designs in white. Their faces were covered and on the tops of their 
heads were fan-shaped forms of wood covered with painted designs. 
After making a circuit of the dance-ground, these masked men 
danced for some time and then withdrew. 

After nightfall a great fire was kindled and the masked men 
returned. Slender-maiden, bearing her cane, danced near the fire. 
With her were other maidens who occasionally invited young men 
to dance with them. While the masked men were dancing, the 
singer from Turkey Creek led the songs of the Gans, immortals who 
join with men in the celebration of attaining adolescence. The time 
of the songs was marked by the singers beating on a stretched skin. 

When the earth was made, 

When the sky was made, 

Where the head of the black earth lies, 

Where the head of the black sky lies, 

Where the heads of them meet, 

Black Thunder, Black Gan, facing each other with life stepped out. 
Black Gan with his dance spoke four times. 

About midnight the singer from Eastfork and his assistants took 
their places within a house consisting of four poles only. A fire was 
kindled here, back of which, facing the east, stood Slender-maiden 
accompanied by a girl of her own age, and two youths. At intervals 
until dawn the songs of Naiyenezgani were sung while the young 
people danced. 

Estsunnadlehe 

From her house of white cloud 
Living white shell, her chief, 



150 



American Indian Life 



It echoes with me. 
Estsunnadlehe 

Long and fortunate life, her chief, 
It echoes with me. 

After breakfast more songs were sung and then the masked men 
appeared and assisted, first in painting Slender-maiden with white 
earth and later in marking with symbols the cheeks and hands of all 
the spectators. The ceremony was now complete and the assembly 
soon dispersed, some people to the gathering of acorns and some to 
their camps in order to tend their crops. 

Among those who had been at the ceremony at Ash Creek was 
a young man named Red-boy. His home was on San Pedro Creek, 
one hundred miles south and west, not far from the country of the 
Pima. He had come to visit relatives in the White Mountain coun- 
try for his mother was of the Adobe clan and her brothers and sisters 
were living on the White River. 

Red-boy was much interested in Slender-maiden and resolved to 
seek her for a wife. His request was listened to, and his presents 
of horses were accepted. Slender-maiden herself was pleased, for 
the stranger was tall, and generous with his presents to her. The 
couple soon moved to a camp on Black River, where Slender-maiden 
was left behind while her husband joined a small party which was go- 
ing to Mexico on a raid. Ten days later the party returned without 
loss and with a large number of horses. Red-boy had taken ten 
which he gave Slender-maiden's parents. 

The next spring Red-boy and Slender-maiden went to the village 
on San Pedro and planted the land that had belonged to Red-boy's 
mother. Here they lived for five years, raising good crops and hav- 
ing plenty of deer from the surrounding mountains. 

One day in August Slender-maiden and her sister-in-law were 
making baskets under the cotton-woods by the creek. Slender- 
maiden's five-year old daughter was sleeping under a willow nearer 
the stream where the breeze was cooler. Suddenly a roar was heard 
and a wall of water, mud, and torn-up trees rushed out of the canyon. 
The women jumped up, but before they could reach the sleeping 
child the water had rolled over in a brown flood. The women them- 
selves were able to escape by climbing into the cotton-woods. 

Saddened by this loss and disconcerted by the washing over of 



Slender-maiden of the Apache 151 

the farm by the waters of a thunder-shower, Slender-maiden and her 
husband moved to the White Mountain country and settled on Cedar 
Creek near her people. Here they lived for ten years. There were 
now five children, the youngest of which was a girl. 

One day a messenger came from White River asking that Slender- 
maiden's husband come to treat a sick man. Red-boy knew the songs 
and ritual of a healing ceremony. He went with his wife, and 
camped by the man who had been suddenly taken ill. He was burn- 
ing with fever and covered with an eruption. The songs were of no 
avail for before dawn the man was dead. The body was almost im- 
mediately placed in a cleft of the rocks in a nearby canyon and cov- 
ered with sticks and stones. 

That afternoon Slender-maiden and her husband moved down 
White River and a few days later to Black River in which she and 
her husband bathed. That night her head ached and she begged 
her husband to leave, lest he too contract the disease. When twelve 
days later the fever left her, she saw her husband sitting by, tired 
and worn with watching over her. 

"Why did you not leave me?" she asked. 

"Because I have loved you for many years," he replied. 

In a few days he too was ill and then Slender-maiden, still weak, 
watched him until he was taken to the canyon for burial. When the 
plague had passed, Slender-maiden's children and near relatives were 
all dead except the youngest girl who had been left with an aunt 
on Cedar Creek. 

Slender-maiden cut her hair, of course, and wore only a skirt and 
a poncho of cloth. Even when the year was up she did not allow her 
hair to grow. Her husband's clansmen, noting her disinclination to 
marry again, respected her wishes and did not assign her a husband. 
She continued the cultivation of her small farm and the care of her 
daughter. 

The requests of her adolescence ceremony for long life were 
answered. So old is she that she must walk with a cane. Her hair 
is white, not with the symbolic white earth but with age. Her 
daughter, in middle age, unmarried, highly respected, but much 
sought for herself and her considerable herds, attends to her physical 
needs. For the remainder, Slender-maiden lives with her memories 
of a happy youth. p. e. Goddard 



When John the Jeweler was Sick 1 



Told at St. Michaels, Arizona, by one of the Franciscan Fathers 

YOU may remember having met here a Navaho friend of ours, one 
of the silver-smiths, whom we familiarly called "John the Jeweler." 
Early this year he went over to the Kohonino Canon and stayed 
there four days. The day after leaving the Canon he was taken with 
ague, and every day for twenty days he had a chill followed by fever 
and delirium. The strangeness of the disease had an extraordinarily 
depressing effect on him and during these twenty days he was in a 
state of utter collapse. 

John the Jeweler is a medicine man, a minor priest, of considerable 
repute, and numbers of his friends came to see him, but none of them 
knew anything about his disease. The priests and the patient were 
inclined to attribute it to "a bad smell emanating from the Kohonino," 
but as there was also a band of wandering Paiutes there during the 
time of the patient's visit, they were not sure but that the bad smell 
may have originated with the Paiutes. 

It was concluded in this emergency to call in the best mediciners of 
the region. The first to officiate was Ojkai yosna. His rites and 
song-prayers were directed to the Ye who dwells at the mouth of 
the pit through which all people came up to this world, and through 
which the spirits of the dead return to the lower world. 

This pit is in the summit of that mountain in the north called 
Tjolii. Between the patient and the mouth of the pit the priest made 
a fire with certain woods, and beside this fire he sang prayers to the 
Ye who sits on "this side" the mouth of the pit. He beseeched the 
Ye not to call the patient to descend the ladder leading to the regions 
of the dead. He rubbed the ashes and pulverized charcoal of his 
medicine-fire all over the body of the patient, first having rubbed him 
with a mixture obtained by melting the fat of the bison, mountain 
sheep, elk and deer, with a small portion of the fat of the domestic 
sheep. This grease was to make stick to the skin the charcoal and 



1 Manuscript contributed by Mr. Stewart Culin. 

153 



j.54 American Indian Life 

ashes of the medicine-fire. After the anointment the songs were sung 
again beside the patient. 

The rites of Ojkai yosna lasted two days and nights and his fee 
was one horse, say fifty dollars. 

The next shaman was Kuma byge. In the sick man's hut, a little 
hollow mound of clay was made, and within the hollow three stones 
were set; on these were laid splinters of pinon and cedar which were 
set afire.' When they had burned to embers, the shaman shook his 
rattle and sang to the Yes of his father. He then laid upon the em- 
bers five herbs. The patient was laid naked upon the sand, close to 
the fireplace, and a blanket was spread over the fireplace, and the pa- 
tient thus inhaled the fumes of the herbs, while the shaman sat along- 
side, shaking his rattle and continuing his song. 

The treatment was performed at sunrise and sunset, and should 
last four days, with songs, dances and other ceremonies at night. 
But in this instance, at the close of the second day, an embarrassing 
circumstance occurred: the patient's wife's menstrual flow began. 
This at once put a stop to all further treatment. Kuma byge's fee 
was one horse, say fifty dollars. 

After the wife got well, Etsldi bikis was summoned. To the 
leader of the four winds sang the shaman, the white wind of the East, 
the blue wind of the South, the yellow wind of the West, and the 
black wind of the North. Before the people emerged from the 
lower world the winds were taken up the pit at Tjolii by the 
"Leader" and their directions assigned them. He caused them to 
blow upon the muddy surface of the earth while this upper surface 
was yet new and damp, until the world became dry enough for habi- 
tation. The winds expelled the evil influence of the bad Yes, and the 
new world became beautiful. So it was to this Leader that Etsldi 
bikis sang, asking him to bring the winds together, and expel the evil 
influence that threatened the patient. 

The ceremonies lasted four days and nights and consisted of song- 
prayers, exhibiting fetiches, shaking the rattle, blowing the whistle, 
and swinging the tsin boosni (which is like swinging the Thunder 
prayer stick of the Hopi) . The fee of Etsidi bikis was a large horse, 
say sixty dollars. 

The next shaman was called Hostin bikan. He administered herb 
roots, both raw and in infusions. The raw root of the Jamestown 



When John the Jeweler was Sick 



155 



weed was given the patient at sunrise, noon and sunset. Each dose 
was something less than half an ounce of the recently dry root. This 
was chewed and swallowed. Closely following each of these doses, 
he was given a piece of the stalk of the Golden Alexander, about six 
inches long and as thick as the thumb. This he chewed, swallowing 
the saliva, but not the fiber. Between the songs, during the day and 
night, infusions were given the patient to drink, in quantities never to 
exceed half a pint at once. There were separate infusions of herbs 
known as: aze klohi, laughing medicine, aze bini, bad or dreaded 
talk medicine, thajuhuitso, great chief of water medicines, that is of 
medicinal herbs growing in marshes, all, I surmise, species of night- 
shade. Hostin bikan's ceremonies lasted a day and a night. His 
fee was a horse, say fifty dollars. 

The last and most potent of the shamans was Kuma. He is chief 
of the clan to which the patient belongs. He lives about thirty miles 
southwest from our Canon. 

Kuma's prayers were directed to Hosdjoqun (the Killer) and 
Hos-(dje) Yelti (the Talker), guardian deities of Tjolii. But all 
these prayers were more immediately addressed to the Yes who 
dwell in the Half-white-house, asking their mediation, that the "Kil- 
ler" might withhold his hand, that the "Talker" might withhold the 
word of death. I presume you know that there is a mythic region in 
the north. It extends from nadir to zenith and has no horizon. It 
is a land of vertical strata of various colors, each stratum reaching 
from The Below to The Above. At each stratification is the house 
of a Ye, half in one stratum, half in the next. 1 

A sweat house is decorated on the outside with a rainbow in colored 
sands ; a singing-house is built for the occasion ; sand pictures (altars) 
are made on the floor of the singing-house; and there are dances of 
the masked participants. 

Kuma's ceremonies lasted five days and nights. Every morning at 
sunrise, the patient was placed in the sweat house for about twenty 
minutes, say ten minutes in each. Nothing of special significance 
was done during the day, but from sunset to dawn the maskers 
danced before the singing-house, while within the singing-house, the 

1 1 am under the impression that the ceremonies Dr. Washington Matthews observed several 
years ago at Fort Defiance were addressed to the Yes of the Half-red-house, but the motive 
in those ceremonies and in these of the Yes of the Half-white-house is the same, and the rites 
and songs very similar. 



156 



American Indian Life 



priests sang their prayers, made their sand pictures, and placed the 
proper fetiches before and upon them. For a fee, Kuma received a 
fine horse and colt, worth one hundred dollars. 

Aside from all these fees, sheep were killed to provide mutton, and 
other provisions were purchased to feed the shamans and their assis- 
tants, the dancers, and the numerous spectators who flock around 
when any of these religious ceremonies are in progress. In these ex- 
penses the patient was assisted by all his relatives. 

In these ceremonies, three weeks went by, with every day an ague. 
At the end of that time, the patient said that he was "looking down 
the descending ladder." 

His friends then cinched him upon a saddle, and brought him here, 
muffled in a blanket, just like a bag of bones. We had him dumped 
in the wool room. This was four days ago. We had no calomel, so 
we gave him a generous dose of blue mass, about thirty grains. On 
the following morning we administered a liberal draught of castor 
oil, and then we gave him about thirty grains of quinine, in four 
doses, daily. Two days ago his ague left him. This morning he 
and his friends left for home. Just as he was leaving, John the 
Jeweler told me he was feeling so well, he thought that by to-morrow 
night he could resume the performance of his marital duties. 

A. M. Stephen 



Waiyautitsa of Zuni, New Mexico 



"ISN'T it hard to believe that life should be so intricate and com- 
plex among those meek, adobe houses on that low hill?" 

We were on the last mile or so of the forty-mile drive through the 
red sandstone above and below, and the green cedar and spruce and 
sagebrush from Gallup to Zuni ; behind us to the southeast was the 
great mesa to which three centuries ago the people had escaped for a 
while from Spanish arrogance, the mesa where one day we were to 
seek for the shrines of the War Leaders and the Song Youth and the 
Earth Woman as we ostensibly hunted rabbits; and before us, barely 
in sight, so quietly does an Indian pueblo fit into the landscape, were 
the rectangular blocks of the many-storied Zuni houses whose flat 
roofs make broken lines, mesa-like, against the sky. At the highest 
point, a three-storied house, the town crier was probably at that very 
moment calling out to the townspeople the orders of the governor and 
council for the following day; but we were still too far away to 
hear, quiet as was the air, and our unarrested eyes turned westward 
to the flaming spectacle of a sunset the like of which is not to be seen 
outside the sweeping valley plain of Zuni. 

Now and again, as you walk between those "meek, adobe houses," 
dodging a snouting pig, or assuming indifference to the dogs that 
dash out from every corner to snarl or yelp ; now and again as you 
see the villagers going about their daily affairs, men driving in from 
the fields, or taking the horses in or out of the corrals, women fetching 
water from the well or bound on a visit to a neighbor, little boys 
chasing one another and babies playing about in the dirt, now and 
again that first impression of material simplicity returns and with it 
the feeling that the round of life must be simple, too. But the 
feeling never lasts long, never holds its own with the crowding im- 
pressions of ceremonial rain dance or pilgrimage or domiciliary 
visitation, of baffling sacerdotal organization and still more baffling 
sacerdotal feuds, of elaborate pantheon, of innumerable myths and 
tales, of associations in story or cult with every hill and rock and 

157 



158 



American Indian Life 



spring, of kinship ramifications and matrimonial histories, of irksome 
relationships with Mexicans and "Americans," and of village gossip 
which is made up so comprehensively of the secular and the sacred 
as to pass far beyond the range of even a New England church social. 

It is not surprising that accounts of Zuni are often bewildering. 
In our own complex culture biography may be a clarifying form 
of description. Might it not avail at Zuni? I venture this biogra- 
phy of Waiyautitsa. 1 

Waiyautitsa is a girl's name; sex generally appears in Zuni per- 
sonal names. Sex appears somewhat in speech too. Waiyautitsa in 
learning to talk will make use of expressions, particularly exclama- 
tions, peculiar to women. In a recent list of the first words used by a 
Zuni child, a boy, there was noted a comparatively large number of 
kinship terms in his vocabulary. The kinship terms of little Wai- 
yautitsa would be somewhat different from a boy's. He calls a 
younger sister ikina; a younger brother, suwe; she calls either hani, 
meaning merely the younger. And, as the Zuni system of kinship 
terms is what is called classificatory, cousins having the same terms 
as brother and sister, Waiyautitsa has even fewer words than her 
brother to express cousinship. 

When Waiyautitsa is three or four years old she may be recognized 
as a girl not merely from her speech, but from her dress, from her 
cotton slip ; at this age little boys wear trousers. But not for another 
three or four years, perhaps longer, will Waiyautitsa wear over her 
cotton slip the characteristic Pueblo woman's dress, — the black blan- 
ket dress fastened on the left shoulder and under the right arm and 
hence called in Zuni, watone, meaning "across," the broad belt woven 
of white, green and red cotton, the store-bought kerchief or square 
of silk (pitone) which, fastened in front, hangs across shoulders and 
back, and the small foot, thick leg moccasins which cover ankle and 
calf in an envelope of fold upon fold of buckskin. Before Waiyau- 
titsa is eight or even six she may, however, when she goes out, cover 
her head and body with a black blanket or with the gay colored 
"shawl" similarly worn. And I have seen very little girls indeed 
wearing moccasins or the footless black stockings Zuni women also 
wear, or "dressing up" in a pitone, that purely ornamental article of 

i 1 ) It was this biography, published originally in "The Scientific Monthly" (Nov. 1919) and 
now revised, which suggested to us the comprehensive biographic plan of this book. Ed. 



Waiyautitsa of Zuni, New Mexico 159 

dress without which no Zufii woman would venture outdoors. With- 
out her pitone she would feel naked, she says, and any man would 
be at liberty to speak disrespectfully to her. When Waiyautitsa is 
about five, her hair, before this worn, like the boys, in a short cut, is 
let grow into a little tail on the nape of her neck. In course of time 
her pigtail will be turned up and tied with a "hair belt" of white, 
green and red cloth. From ear to ear her front hair will be banged 
to the end of her nose, the bang drawn sidewise above the forehead 
except at such times in ceremonials when it is let fall forward to con- 
ceal the upper part of the face. 

This hair arrangement serves in ceremonials as a kind of mask, 
as you may see in the frontispiece picture of the headdress worn in 
the Thlahawe, a woman's corn dance. A mask proper, that quasi 
fetich which has so important a place in Pueblo ceremonialism, 
Waiyautitsa will in all probability never wear. Unlike her brother, 
Waiyautitsa will not be initiated in childhood into the Kachina 
society, and consequently she will not join one of the six sacred club- 
houses or estufas which supply personators for the Kachinas or 
masked dancers. Not that female personages do not figure in these 
ceremonials, but as was the rule on the Elizabethan stage, women are 
impersonated by men. 

To this exclusion of girls from the Kachina society and from 
participating in the masked dances there are a few exceptions. To- 
day three women belong to the Kachina society. They were taken 
into it not in childhood, but in later life and, it is said, for one of the 
same reasons women as well as men are taken into the other societies 
of Zuni. Cured by ceremonial whipping of the bad effects of night- 
mare or of some other ailment, they were "given" to the estufa 
credited through one of its members with the cure. Of the three 
women members only one is said to dance, and she is accounted 
mannish, katsotse, girl-man, a tomboy. 

Waiyautitsa will likely not be initiated into the kotikyane, but 
she is quite likely to be initiated into another society, — into the Great- 
fire-brand or Little fire-brand, or Bedbug or Ant or Wood society, 
into any one of the thirteen Zuni societies except three, the bow priest- 
hood or society of warriors, of warriors who have taken a scalp, or the 
Hunter society or the Cactus society, a society that cures arrow or 
gun-shot wounds. As women do not hunt or go to war, from mem- 



i6o 



American Indian Life 



bership in these groups they are excluded or, better say, precluded. 
As we shall see later, affiliation by sex is, in ceremonial affairs, along 
the lines of customary occupation. 

If Waiyautitsa falls sick and is cured by a medicine man of the 
medicine order of a society she must be "given" either to the family 
of the medicine man or to his society. Initiated she may not be, how- 
ever, for a long time afterwards, perhaps for years. Initiations take 
place in the winter when school is in session, the school either of the 
Indian Bureau or of the Dutch Reformed Church, and for that 
reason, it is said, initiations may be postponed until past school age. 
Despite the schools, I may say, I have met but two Zuni women who 
speak English with any fluency. One woman is a member of the 
Snake-medicine society, into which she was initiated after conval- 
escence from measles, a decimating disease at Zuni, to be accounted 
for only through witchcraft. The other woman was accounted the 
solitary convert of the Dutch Reformed Church Mission in Zuni 
until six or seven years ago she joined the Wood society because as 
a child she had been cured by them of smallpox. 

After initiation, the women, like the men of a society, offer prayer 
sticks each moon, observing continence for four days thereafter, and 
they join in the four-day retreat in the ceremonial house of the society 
preliminary to an initiation. Unlike the men, however, the women 
do not spend the entire night, only the evening, in the society house, 
and, while there, they are listeners rather than narrators of the in- 
exhaustible folk tales that are wont to be told at society gatherings. 
Men are the custodians of the lore, secular as well as esoteric, of the 
tribe, just as men and not women are the musicians. The men are 
devoted singers, singing as they dance or singing as a choir for 
dancers, and singing as they go to or from work in the fields, or as 
they drive their horses to water in the river or to the corrals on the 
edges of the town. Even grinding songs are sung on ceremonial 
occasions by men. 

In the public appearances of the society, the women members 
figure but little. Societies supply choirs and drummers and cere- 
monial road openers or leaders to the masked dancers and, during the 
great koko awia (Kachina coming) or shalako ceremonial, to various 
groups of sacred personages. I have seen several dances in Zuni and 
one celebration of koko awia, and I have seen but one woman officiate 



Waiyautitsa of Zuni, New Mexico 161 

in public. As a daughter of the house which was entertaining the 
koyemshi or sacred clowns she was in attendance upon that group 
in the koko awia or Advent, so to speak, of 191 5. 

If Waiyautitsa belongs to a society, she will offer or plant the 
befeathered prayer sticks, which are so conspicuous a feature of 
Pueblo religion, but, being a woman, Waiyautitsa will not cut or 
dress the sticks. She will only grind the pigments and, perhaps, 
paint the sticks. Nor as a woman would she offer the sticks on cer- 
tain other ceremonial occasions when the men offer them. Once a 
year, however, at the winter solstice ceremonial on which so much 
of Zuni ritualism pivots, Waiyautitsa will be expected, even in 
infancy, to plant, planting for the "old ones," i. e., the ancestors and 
for the Moon, but not, like the men, for the Sun or, unless a member 
of the Kachina society, for the ancestral beings, the Kachina. 

At the conclusion of the winter solstice ceremonial, when certain 
sacred figures called kwelele go from house to house, the women 
carry embers around the walls of the house and throw them out on 
the kwelele. It is the rite of shuwaha, cleansing, exorcism. There 
are a number of other little rites peculiar to the women in Zuni 
ceremonialism. Through them, and through a number of rites they 
share with the men, through provisions for supplying food in the 
estufa to the sacred personators or for entertaining them at home 
or making them presents, women have an integral part in Zuni cere- 
monialism. In what we may call the ceremonial management, how- 
ever, they appear to have little or no part. 

Even when women are initiated into the Kachina society, or are 
associated with the ashiwanni or rain priests, their functions seem 
to be primarily of an economic or housekeeping order. The women 
members of the rain priesthoods have to offer food every day to the 
fetiches of these sacerdotal groups— to stones carved and uncarved, 
and to cotton-wrapped lengths of cane filled with "the seeds the 
people live by." For the seed fetiches to be in any way disturbed in 
the houses to which they are attached, involves great danger to the 
people, and on a woman in the house, the woman member of the 
priesthood, falls the responsibility of guardianship or shelter. But 
even these positions of trust are no longer held by women— there are 
only six women ashiwanni among the fifteen priesthoods. The 
woman's position among the paramount priesthood, the rain priest- 



American Indian Life 



hood of the North, has been vacant now for many years — no suitable 
woman being willing, they say, to run the risks or be under the tabus 
of office. Aside from this position of woman shiwanni, women count 
for little or nothing in the theocracy of Zuni. They were and are 
associated with the men priests to do the work pertinent to women. 
In the case of the Zuni pantheon or its masked impersonations, the 
association is needed to satisfy or carry out, so to speak, Zuni standards 
or concepts of conjugality. The couple rather than the individual 
is the Zuni unit. Sometimes, in ceremony or in myth, the couple 
may consist of two males. 

There is one masked couple I have noted in particular at Zuni, the 
atoshle. Two or three times during the winter our little Waiyau- 
titsa, together with other girls and very little boys, may expect to be 
frightened by the atoshle, the disciplinary masks who serve as buga- 
boos to children as well as a kind of sergeant-at-arms, the male 
atoshle at least, for adults. If the children meet the old man and 
his old woman in the street, they run away helter-skelter. If the 
dreadful couple visits a child indoors, sent for perhaps by a parent, 
the child is indeed badly frightened. I suppose that Waiyautitsa is 
six or seven years old when one day, as an incident of some dance, the 
atoshle "come out" and come to her house. The old woman atoshle 
carries a deep basket on her back in which to carry off naughty chil- 
dren and in her hand a crook to catch them by the ankle. With the 
crook she pulls Waiyautitsa over to the grinding stones in the corner 
of the room, telling her that now she is getting old enough to help 
her mother about the house, to look after the baby and, before so very 
long, to grind. She must mind her mother and be a good girl. I 
once saw a little girl so terrified by such admonition that she began 
to whimper, hiding her head in her mother's lap until the atoshle 
was sprinkled with the sacred meal and left the house to perform else- 
where his role of parent's assistant. 

Whether from fear, from supernatural fear or fear of being talked 
about as any Zuni woman who rests or idles is talked about, or 
whether from example, more from the latter no doubt than from the 
former, Waiyautitsa is certainly a "good girl," a gentle little creature, 
and very docile. Sometimes she plays lively games with her "sisters" 
next door like the game of bear at the spring. A spiral is traced on 



Waiyautitsa of Zuni, New Mexico 163 



the ground and at the center is placed a bowl of water to represent a 
spring. The girls follow the spiral to get water for their little tur- 
keys which, they sing, are dying of thirst. Then the "bear" rushes 
out from the spring and gives chase. But for the most part the 
little girls play quietly at house. In this way and in imitating at 
home her industrious mother or aunt, or her even more industrious 
grandmother or great-aunt, Waiyautitsa learns to do all the household 
tasks of women. She learns to grind the corn on the stone metate — 
that back-hardening labor of the Pueblo woman — and to prepare and 
cook the meal in a number of ways in an outside oven or on the 
American stove or on the flat slab on which hewe or wafer bread is 
spread. For the ever cheery family meal she sets out the coffee-pot, 
the hewe or tortilla, and the bowls of chile and of mutton stew on the 
earthen floor she is forever sweeping up with her little homemade 
brush or with an American broom. (A Zuni house is kept very 
clean and amazingly neat and orderly.) 

And Waiyautitsa becomes very thrifty — not only naturally but 
super-naturally. She will not sell corn out of the house without 
keeping back a few grains in order that the corn may return — in 
Zuni thought the whole follows a part. And she will keep a lump 
of salt in the corn storeroom and another in the bread bowl — when 
salt is dug out, the hole soon refills, and this virtue of replacing itself 
the salt is expected to impart to the corn. There are other respects, 
too, in which Waiyautitsa will learn how to facilitate the economy. 
She will sprinkle the melon seeds for planting, with sweetened water 
— melons should be sweet. Seed wheat she will sprinkle with a white 
clay to make the crop white, and with a plant called k'owa so that 
wheat dough will pull well. Seed corn will be sprinkled with water 
that the crop may be well rained on. 

From some kinswoman who is a specially good potter, Waiyau- 
titsa may have learned to coil and paint and "fire the bowls as well 
as the cook pots and water jars the household needs. She fetches in 
wood from the woodpile and now and again she may be seen chop- 
ping the pine or cedar logs the men of the household have brought 
in on donkey or in wagon. She fetches water from one of the modern 
wells of the town, carrying it in a jar on her head and walking in the 
slow and springless gait always characteristic of Pueblo women. 



164 



American Indian Life 



Perhaps that gait, so ponderous and so different from the gait of the 
men, is the result of incessant industry, a kind of unconscious self- 
protective device against ''speeding up." 

Waiyautitsa will learn to work outdoors as well as in. She will 
help her mother in keeping one of the small vegetable gardens near 
the town — the men cultivate the outlying fields of corn and wheat 
(and the men and boys herd the sheep which make the Zuni prosper- 
ous), and Waiyautitsa will help her household thresh their wheat 
crop, in the morning preparing dinner for the workers, for relatives 
from other households as well as from her own, in the afternoon 
joining the threshers as the men drive horses or mules around the 
circular threshing floor and the women and girls pitchfork the wheat 
and brush away the chaff and winnow the grain in baskets. Waiyau- 
titsa will also learn to make adobe blocks and to plaster with her 
bare hand or with a rabbit-skin glove the adobe walls of her mother's 
house, inside and out. Pueblo men are the carpenters of a house, 
but the women are always the plasterers, and Waiyautitsa will have 
to be a very old woman indeed to think she is too old to plaster. On 
my last visit to Zuni I saw a woman seventy, or not much under, 
spending part of an afternoon on her knees plastering the chinks of 
a door newly cut between two rooms. 

The house she plasters belongs, or will in time belong, to Waiyau- 
titsa. Zuni women own their houses and their gardens or, perhaps 
it is better to say, gardens and houses belong to the family through 
the women. At marriage a girl does not leave home; her husband 
joins her household. He stays in it, too — only as long as he is wel- 
come. If he is lazy, if he fails to bring in wood, if he fails to 
contribute the produce of his fields, or if some one else for some other 
reason is preferred, his wife expects him to leave her household. He 
does not wait to be told twice. "The Zuni separate whenever they 
quarrel or get tired of each other," a critical Acoma moralist once 
said to me. The monogamy of Zuni is, to be sure, rather brittle. In 
separation the children stay with the mother. 

Children belong to their mother's clan. They have affiliations, 
however, as we shall see, with the clan of their father. If the mother 
of Waiyautitsa is a Badger, let us say, and her father a Turkey, 
Waiyautitsa will be a Badger and "the child of the Turkey." She 
can not marry a Turkey clansman nor, of course, a Badger. Did 



Waiyautitsa of Zuni, New Mexico 165 



she show any partiality for a clansman, an almost incredible thing, she 
would be told she was just like a dog or a burro. 

These exogamous restrictions aside, and the like restrictions that 
may arise in special ways between the household of Waiyautitsa 
and other households, Waiyautitsa would be given freedom of choice 
in marrying. Even if her household did not like her man, and her 
parents had told her not "to talk to" him, Zuni for courting, she and 
he could go to live with some kinswoman. No one, related or unre- 
lated, would refuse to take them in. Nobody may be turned from the 
door. Nor would a girl whose child was the offspring of a chance 
encounter be turned out by her people or slighted. The illegitimate 
child is not discriminated against at Zuni. 

Casual relationships occur at Zuni, but they are not commercial- 
ized, there is no prostitution. Nor is there any lifelong celibacy. 
As for courtship, very little of it can there be — at least before inti- 
macy either in the more transient or more permanent forms of mat- 
ing,— ^the separation outside of the household of boys and girls of 
various ages is so thorough. "But what if a little girl wanted to 
play with boys?" I once asked. "They would laugh at her and say 
she was too crazy about boys." "Crazy" at Zuni, as quite generally 
among Indians, means passionate. (Girls at Zuni are warned away 
from ceremonial trespass by the threat of becoming "crazy.") 

The young men and girls do, to be sure, have non-ceremonial 
dances together, and in preparing for them there are opportunities 
for personal acquaintance. I saw one of these dances not long ago. 
It was a Comanche dance. There were a choir of about a dozen 
youths including the drummer, four girl dancers heavily be-ringed 
and be-necklaced, the pattern of whose dance, two by two or in line, 
was very regular, and a youth who executed in front of them or 
around them an animated and very beautiful pas seul. After danc- 
ing outside in the plaza, they all went into the "saint's house" to 
dance for her "because they like her" — a survival no doubt of the 
custom of dancing in the Catholic church observed by the Indians 
in Mexico and not long since quite generally in New Mexico. 

But it is on the twilight trip to the well, the conventional Zuni 
hour of courtship, that Waiyautitsa will be approached by suitors. 
Muffled in his black blanket the youth may step out from the corner 
where he has been lurking and put his hand on the girl's arm. If 



166 American Indian Life 

she will have none of him, she may avert her head and hasten on to 
overtake the woman in front, but if she fancies the fellow, she will 
pause, if but for a moment or two, to talk. It is a brief encounter 
and, with somebody in front and perhaps another girl coming up 
behind, it is far from private; still after Waiyautitsa has had a few 
such meetings, "two or four," she is likely to invite the young man 
to join her household. At first, for a few days, he will stay in the 
common room, in the room where all sleep (sleeping and dressing, 
let me say, with the utmost modesty) , he will stay only at night, leav- 
ing before dawn, "staying still" his shyness is called. Then he will 
begin to eat his meals with the household. There is, you see, no 
wedding ceremonial and a man slips as easily as he can into the life 
of his wife's household. 

Waiyautitsa will pay a formal visit on her bridegroom's people, 
taking his mother a basket of corn meal. To Waiyautitsa herself 
her young man will have given a present of cloth for a dress, or a 
buckskin for the moccasins he will make for her. Hides are a 
product of the chase, of cattle raising (cowhide is used to sole moc- 
casins), or of trade, men's occupations, and so moccasins of both 
women and men are made by men. Women make their own dresses, 
although, formerly, before weaving went out of fashion at Zuni, it 
is likely that men were the weavers, just as they are to-day among the 
Hopi from whom the men of Zuni get cloth for their ceremonial 
kilts and blankets, and for the dresses of the women. Even to-day at 
Zuni men may make up their own garments from store-bought goods 
and it is not unusual to see a man sitting to a sewing machine. 

A man may use cloth or thread for other than economic reasons. 
In case a girl jilts him he will catch her out some night and take 
a bit from her belt to fasten to a tree on a windy mesa top. As the 
wind wears away the thread, the woman will sicken and perhaps in 
two or three years die. A woman who is deserted may take soil 
from the man's footprints and put it where she sleeps. At night 
he will think of her and come back — "even if the other woman is 
better looking." Apprehensive of desertion a woman may put a 
lock of hair from the man in her house wall or, the better to attach 
him to her, she may wear it over her heart. Women and men alike 
may buy love charms from the ne'wekwe, a curing society, potent in 
magic, black or white. There is a song, too, which men and women 



Waiyautitsa of Zuni, New Mexico 167 

may sing "in their heart" to charm the opposite sex. And there is a 
song which a girl may sing to the corn as she rubs the yellow meal on 
her face before going out. "Help me," is the substance of it, "I 
am going to the plaza. Make me look pretty." Rarely do our girls 
pray, I suppose, when they powder their noses. 

Courtship past for the time being, courtship by magic or otherwise, 
Waiyautitsa is now, let us say, an expectant mother. Her household 
duties continue to be about the same, but certain precautions, if she 
inclines to be very circumspect, she does take. She will not test the 
heat of her oven by sprinkling it in the usual way with bran, for 
if she does, her child, she has heard, may be born with a skin eruption. 
Nor will she look at a corpse or help dress a dead animal lest her 
child be born dead or disfigured. She has heard that, even as a little 
girl if she ate the whitish leaf of the corn husk, her child would be 
an albino. If her husband eats this during the pregnancy, the result 
would be the same. On her husband fall a number of other preg- 
nancy tabus, perhaps as many as fall on her, if not more. If he hunts 
and maims an animal, the child will be similarly maimed — deformed 
or perhaps blind. If he joins in a masked dance, the child may 
have some mask-suggested misshape or some eruption like the paint 
on the mask. If he sings a great deal, the child will be a cry-baby. 
The habit of thinking in terms of sympathetic magic or of reasoning 
by analogy which is even more conspicuous at Zuni than, let us say, 
at New York, is particularly evident in pregnancy or birth practises 
or tabus. 

Perhaps Waiyautitsa has wished to determine the sex of the child. 
In that case she may have made a pilgrimage with a rain priest to 
Corn Mesa to plant a prayer stick which has to be cut and painted 
in one way for a boy, in another way for a girl. (Throughout the 
Southwest blue or turquoise is associated with maleness, and yellow 
with femaleness.) Wanting a girl— and girls are wanted in Zuni 
quite as much as boys, if not more — Waiyautitsa need not make the 
trip to the mesa, instead her husband may bring her to wear in her belt 
scrapings from a stone in a phallic shrine near the mesa. When labor 
sets in and the pains are slight, indicating, women think, a girl, Wai- 
yautitsa may be told by her mother, "Don't sleep, or you will have a 
boy." A nap during labor effects a change of sex. When the child 
is about to be born, Waiyautitsa is careful, too, if she wants a girl, 



i68 



American Indian Life 



to see that the custom of sending the men out of the house at this 
time is strictly observed. 

After the birth, Waiyautitsa will lie in for several days, four, eight, 
ten or twelve, according to the custom of her family. Whatever the 
custom, if she does not observe it, she runs the risk of "drying up" and 
dying. She lies on a bed of sand heated by hot stones, and upon her 
abdomen is placed a hot stone. Thus is she "cooked," people say, 
and creatures whose mothers are not thus treated are called uncooked, 
raw — they are the animals, the gods, Whites. To be "cooked" seems 
to be tantamount in Zuni to being human. 

It is the duty of Waiyautitsa's mother-in-law, the child's pater- 
nal grandmother, to look after mother and child during the con- 
finement, and at its close to carry the child outdoors at dawn and 
present him or her to the Sun. Had Waiyautitsa lost children, she 
might have invited a propitious friend, some woman who had had 
many children and lost none, to attend the birth and be the first to 
pick up the child and blow into his mouth. In these circumstances 
the woman's husband would become the initiator of the child, if a 
boy, when the child was to be taken into the Kachina society. 
Generally the child's father chooses some man from the house of his 
own kuku or paternal aunt to be the initiator or godfather, so to 
speak, of the child. Ceremonial rites usually fall to the paternal 
relatives. 

But the infant will receive attentions of a ritual or magical nature, 
likewise from his mother and her household. He is placed on a 
cradle board in which, near the position of his heart, a bit of tur- 
quoise is inlaid to preclude the cradle bringing any harm to its 
tenant. Left alone, a baby runs great risk — some family ghost may 
come and hold him, causing him to die within four days. And so a 
quasi-fetichistic ear of corn, a double ear thought of as mother and 
child, is left alongside the baby as a protector. That the baby may 
teethe promptly, his gums may be rubbed by one who has been bitten 
by a snake — "snakes want to bite." To make the child's hair grow 
long and thick, his grandfather or uncle may puff the smoke of native 
tobacco on his head. That the child may not be afraid in the dark, 
water-soaked embers are rubbed over his heart the first time he is 
taken out at night — judging from what I have seen of Zufii children 
and adults a quite ineffectual method. That the child may keep 



Waiyautitsa of Zuni, New Mexico 169 

well and walk early, hairs from a deer are burned, and the child 
held over the smoke — deer are never sick, and rapid is their gait. 
Their hearing, too, is acute, so discharge from a deer's ear will be 
put into the baby's ear. That the child may talk well and with 
tongues, the tongue of a snared mocking bird may be cut out and 
held to the baby to lick. The bird will then be released in order 
that, as it regains its tongue and "talks," the child will talk. A 
youth who speaks in addition to his native tongue Keresan, English 
and Spanish, has been pointed out to me as one who had licked mock- 
ing bird tongue. 

Waiyautitsa will give birth to three or four children, probably 
not more, and then, as she approaches middle age, we may suppose 
that she falls sick, and after being doctored unsuccessfully first by 
her old father who happens to be a well-known medicine man of 
the Great Fire-brand society, and then by a medicine man from the 
ne'wekwe society whose practice is just the opposite, Waiyautitsa 
dies. Within a few hours elderly kinswomen of her father's will 
come in and wash her hair and body, and at dawn sprinkle her face, 
first with water and then with meal. The deceased will be well 
dressed, and in a blanket donated by her father's people she will 
be carried to the cemetery lying in front of the old church, a ruin 
from the days of the Catholic establishment in Zuni. There to the 
north of the central wooden cross, i. e., on the north side of the ceme- 
tery, Waiyautitsa will be buried. Women are buried on the north 
side and men on the south. 

Waiyautitsa will be carried out and buried by her father and other 
men in the household. No women will go to the burial, nor will 
the widower. The widower, as soon as the corpse is taken outdoors, 
will be fetched by his women relatives to live at their house. There 
they straightway wash his hair— a performance inseparable in Zuni, 
as at other pueblos, from every time of crisis or ceremony. The 
hair of all the other members of Waiyautitsa's household will be 
washed at the end of four days by women relatives of her father. 
During this time, since the spirit of Waiyautitsa is thought to linger 
about the home, the house door will be left open for her at night. 
The bowl used in washing her hair, and the implements used in 
digging her grave will also be left outdoors. Her smaller and pecu- 
liarly personal possessions have been buried with her, and bulky 



170 



American Indian Life 



things like bedding have been burned or taken to a special place 
down the river to be buried. The river flows to the lake sixty miles 
or so west of Zuni, where Waiyautitsa's spirit is also supposed to 
take its journey. There under the lake it abides, except when with 
other spirits it returns in the clouds to pour down upon Zuni fields 
the beneficent rain. People will say to a child, when they see a 
heavy cloud, "There goes your grandmother"; or they will quite 
seriously say to one another, "Our grandfathers are coming." 

Waiyautitsa's children may go on living at home with their grand- 
mother, Waiyautitsa's mother, or it may be that one of them is 
adopted by a maternal aunt or great-aunt or cousin. Zuni children, 
cherished possessions as they are, are always being adopted — even in 
the lifetime of their mother. Adopted, a child — or an adult — will fit 
thoroughly into the ways of his adoptive household. It is the house- 
hold as well as the clan which differentiates the Zuni family group 
from our individualistic type of family. The household changes 
quite readily, but, whatever its composition, it is an exceedingly in- 
tegrated and responsible group. 

However the children are distributed, it will be the older woman 
or women in the household who will control them. This household 
system is one that gives position and considerable authority to the 
elder women — until the women are too old, people say, to be of any 
use. (In spite of this irony, I have heard of but one old woman who 
was neglected by her household.) An older woman who is the fe- 
male head of the household is greatly respected by her daughters and 
sons-in-law and grandchildren, as well as by the sons or brothers who 
continually visit the household and often, as temporary celibates, re- 
turn to live in it. 

The older woman is highly esteemed, but she is by no means the 
head of the household — unless she is widowed. Wherever the house- 
hold contributes to the ceremonial public life, her husband is para- 
mount. In the non-ceremonial, economic life, too, he has equal, if 
not greater, authority. And in the general economy he more or less 
expects his wife to serve him and wait on him. This conjugal sub- 
ordination is not apparent to any extent among the younger people; 
the younger husband and wife are too much drawn into the corporate 
household life. But as time passes and they in turn become the 



Waiyautitsa of Zuni, New Mexico 171 



heads of the household, the man appears to be more given to staying 
at home, and more and more he takes control. 

From this brief survey of the life of a woman at Zuni, in so far as it 
can be distinguished from the general life, we get the impression that 
the differentiation of the sexes follows lines of least resistance which 
start from a fairly fundamental division of labor. From being 
hunters and trappers men become herders of the domestic animals, 
drivers or riders. Trade journeys and trips for wood or for the col- 
lecting of other natural resources are associated with men, and work 
on the things acquired is men's work — men, for example, are wood 
cutters, and bead makers, whether the objects are for secular or sac- 
erdotal use. Analogously all work upon skins or feathers is work 
for men whether it leads to the manufacture of clothing or to com- 
munication with the supernaturals. Again, as farmers, men are as- 
sociated with that system of supernatural instrumentalism for fertil- 
ity and weather control which constitutes in large part Zuni religion. 
In other words, the bulk of the ceremonial life, a system for the most 
part of rain rituals, is in the hands of the men. So is government. 
The secular officers are merely representatives of the priests. Zuni 
government is a theocracy in which women have little part. The 
house and housekeeping are associated with women. Clay is the 
flesh of a female supernatural, and clay processes, brickmaking or 
laying or plastering, and pottery making are women's work. There 
are indications in sacerdotal circles that painting is, or was thought 
of as, a feminine activity. Corn, like clay, is the flesh of female 
supernaturals, and the corn is associated with women. Even men 
corn growers are in duty bound to bring their product to their wife 
or mother. Women or women impersonations figure in corn rituals. 
It is tempting to speculate that formerly, centuries since, women 
themselves were the corn growers. To-day, at any rate, the prepara- 
tion of corn, as of other food, is women's work. Wherever food and 
its distribution figure in ceremonials, and there is a constant offering 
of food to the supernaturals, women figure. Fetiches are attached to 
houses and in so far as providing for these fetiches is household work, 
it is women's work and leads to the holding of sacerdotal office by 
women. The household rather than ties of blood is the basis of fam- 
ily life. The children of the household are more closely attached to 



172 



American Indian Life 



the women than to the men. One expression of this attachment is 
seen in reckoning clan membership through the mother. 

Household work at Zuni as elsewhere is continuous. The women 
are always on the move. The work of the men, on the other hand, is 
intermittent. Hunting, herding and farming are more or less sea- 
sonal activities and are more or less readily fitted into ceremonial pur- 
suits, or rather, in their less urgent periods, take on ceremonial as- 
pects. In the ceremonial life the arts find expression, and the men 
and not the women are, by and large, the artists of the tribe. 

Attached to the ceremonial life are the games of chance and the 
races that are played or run at certain seasons. Here again the inter- 
mittent habit of work of the men, together with their comparative 
mobility, qualifies them as gamesters and runners to the exclusion 
more or less of the women. Formerly, to be sure, the women played 
a pole and hoop game, and, given ceremonial exigency as among the 
Hopi, the women no doubt would run races. 

Household work is confining. Hunting, herding, trading lead to 
a comparatively mobile habit, a habit of mind or spirit which in the 
Southwest, at least, is adapted to ceremonial pursuit; for Pueblo In- 
dian ceremonialism thrives on foreign accretions, whether of myth 
or song or dance or design of mask or costume, or, within certain 
limits of assimilation, of psychological patterns of purpose or grati- 
fication. 

To the point of view that the differentiation of the sexes at Zufti 
proceeds on the whole from the division of labor, the native custom 
of allowing a boy or man to become, as far as ways of living go, a girl 
or woman, gives color. Towards adolescence, and sometimes in later 
life, it is permissible for a boy culturally to change sex. He puts on 
women's dress, speaks like a woman, and behaves like a woman. 
This alteration is due to the fact that one takes readily to women's 
work, one prefers it to men's work. Of one or another of the three 
men-women now at Zuni or of the men-women in other pueblos I 
have always been told that the person in question made the change be- 
cause he wanted to work like a woman or because his household was 
short of women and needed a woman worker. 

And yet among the Hopi, where the economy is practically identi- 
cal with the Zuni, there are no men-women; in this tribe the institu- 
tion, it is said, was never established. This, like other customs, is 



Waiyautitsa of Zuni, New Mexico 173 



not merely a matter of economic adjustment; economic or psycho- 
logic propriety or consistency or predisposition may count, but of 
great importance also are the survival of traits from an earlier cul- 
ture, and the acquiring of traits from the culture of neighboring 
peoples. Were we to understand the interplay of all these factors in 
the life, shall we say, of Waiyautitsa, we might be a long way towards 
understanding the principles of society, even other than that of Zuni. 

Elsie Clews Parsons 



' 1 



I 



Zuni Pictures 



If there was any one thing in the wide world I wanted to do more 
than another, it was to visit the New Mexican pueblo where my 
friend Tenatsali 1 spent so many years of his strange career. He had 
discovered it and made it his own and before his death he turned over 
to me his title to its romance and mystery. This was all he possessed 
in it, for even the stone house he built with money earned by literary 
work had dropped from his lavish hands. It happened one winter 
while crossing the continent I heard there was to be a dance at the 
pueblo. The news decided me. I stopped off on the railroad, hired 
a team from the sheriff and had him drive me down to the town. It 
was winter; snow covered the heights and we were both chilled 
through when we reached Tenatsali's big stone house, then a trading 
store. The farmer-agent, a jovial man, who had been the trader in 
Tenatsali's day, lived in the other end of the building. He wel- 
comed me as an old friend and told me stories of Tenatsali until late 
into the night, as we sat before his fire. 

It was in his house Tenatsali had remained concealed in the long 
interval from the time he rode out so debonairly on the war-path to 
take a scalp, and the arrival of a scalp from Washington. He was 
obliged to perform a scalp-taking feat before he could be admitted to 
membership among the Priests of the Bow. As he would not secure 
a scalp in the orthodox way, he had to get one as best he could. 
It was a very old scalp, one from the National Museum collected by 
Lewis H. Morgan many years before. 

I slept soundly after the long ride, but, rising betimes, sought a 
guide that I might go to the village, which is like an ant hill, across 
the little river, and then climb to the summit of that mesa to the East 
which overlooks the great valley. The two possible interpreters, 
youths who had been reared by the trader, were both sequestered in 
the village as they were to take part in the dance. And so it was de- 
cided I could do no better than engage a schoolboy who, while he 
spoke little or no English, could at least show me the trail up the 

1 Frank Hamilton Cushing. Tenatsali, one of the medicine plants, was his Zuni name. 

175 



I7 6 American Indian Life 

mesa. In spite of the snow the boy was barefoot, and his single gar- 
ment was scanty protection from the cold. We crossed the wide 
stretch of plain, rounded the mesa and took the steep trail on the 
farther side. It was half obliterated by the snowdrifts, but the boy 
ran lightly ahead, up and up, stretching me a hand at the steep places 
until we reached the broad, table top. There in an open shrine stood 
the image of the war god, Ahaiyuta, his plumes bedraggled and 
blown about by the wind. We passed the ruins covered with spiny 
cactus and I waited while the boy, nimble as a goat, descended the 
trail beside the pinnacled rock to visit the old images of the war gods 
ranged in a row in their immemorial cave. There too he saw, I sup- 
pose, the painted jars that held the old masks of Sayatasha. When 
he came back we visited the other war-god shrine and descended the 
mesa to return across the plain to the store, tired and hungry after our 
seven-miles' round. 

Here we found people from far and near who had come to see the 
dance. There was Jesus, the Mexican, and French Dan, FalstarHan 
and dissolute. There was the Missionary whom later I was to know 
better and the Field Matron, a wraith of a woman who went silently 
among the Indians and gave them some drug she had discovered 
through an advertisement in the "boiler plate" of her home paper. 
There were the Indians who fraternize with the whites, like the 
Albino and the old Mormon, or to give him his full name, Ten Cent 
Mormon, because he had been baptized by the Mormons in the early 
days and received ten cents to bind the bargain. 

The conversation at the dinner table where we had a hearty, steam- 
ing meal was all about the dance, and even the sheriff was moved 
to express himself. It was the first time this particular dance had 
been performed for years. The Arrow-Swallowing society had 
given public exhibitions, but on this occasion there was to be tree- 
swallowing as well. It was plain enough that the agent and the 
sheriff really believed that the Indians had supernatural pow- 



ers 



The agent accompanied me to the village that afternoon and 
guided me to a place in the large, central court where I could see 
the dance to advantage. A red blanket was spread for us to sit upon 
and we took our places with the expectant crowd. Every living soul 



Zuni Pictures 177 

in the pueblo, dressed in their best and gayest clothes, lined the roofs 
of the terraced houses. 

Few plays are staged more effectively than these performances. 
The adobe walls of the houses furnish a perfect background. The 
court seems entirely inclosed and the processions of dancers enter 
and return by passageways set at right angles on either side. In the 
centre of the plaza was a long, white, wooden box painted in colors 
with cloud-terrace and rain symbols which the musicians used as a 
resonator for their notched-stick rattles. While we talked, the agent 
pointed out familiar faces like Nina, the pretty granddaughter of 
old Nayuchi the war chief, and Lusalu, the fat governor. The small 
children played on the edges of the crowd and mud-bedaubed clowns 
lolled around the painted box. Two old men dressed in gala attire, 
with white smocks and gay bandas and sashes, took up the notched 
instruments and began scraping them in a rhythmic motion with plec- 
tra made of sheep bone. There are few more mysterious and dis- 
turbing sounds than this same scraping. The time is perfect, the 
rhythm inexorable. Something was about to happen. 

Two long processions advanced slowly into the plaza. In single 
file, keeping perfect time, their turtle-shell, leg rattles in absolute 
unison, dressed all alike in kilts and armlets, with faces and bodies 
painted white, the dancers approached each other from opposite sides, 
and wonderful to behold, each dancer with head thrown back sup- 
ported a tall spruce tree erect in his mouth. Below were the bodies 
of the white-painted figures, robust and vigorous, and above a moving 
forest. The processions continued to advance, and curved round the 
plaza until they displayed their entire length, halted with a loud 
faronfare of gourd rattles,— and then became still and silent. There 
were women among them— and one wearing a white, cylinder-shaped 
mask. Some children, neophytes, followed, and on one side a tiny 
boy with a miniature spruce brought up the rear. The dancers 
rested, withdrew the trees from their mouths and held them, butts 
upward with the top boughs resting on the ground. Then it was 
that the full significance of the performance was revealed. The 
butts, rudely chopped to a tapering point eight or more inches in 
length, had been entirely swallowed. 



178 American Indian Life 

Again the strident notes of the rattles sounded. The dancers took 
up their trees, elevated and adjusted them in their mouths and danced 
as before. There was the same volume of coordinated sounds, of 
gourd rattles, of resonant shells and the swish, swish of the garments. 
Again the white mask danced on. . . . It grew dark and I left the 
plaza, in a daze. What did it all mean — the painted box, the swal- 
lowed trees, the white mask? 

Stewart Culin 



Havasupai Days 
i 



LANSO is a hedonist of seven. Day dawns late down in Cataract 
Canyon, but even spring nights in Arizona are chill, and one's own 
soft-woven bedding, cedar-bark mat and rabbit-skin blanket, suffuse 
a warmth one would not willingly forego. But, — "Lanso," whispers 
grandfather Sinyella, "up and run toward the daylight. Run, that 
you grow straight and lusty. And heed me; take your torch and 
touch it to your elbows and your wrists that you may never be rheu- 
matic as I, your relative. Oh yes, and as you turn back, fling the 
torch behind you, turn once again and snatch it up, that your memory 
may be strong too, that you may remember quickly a forgotten deer 
charm when you go to hunt." 

Lanso leaves his creekside home, worms his way among the slender 
cotton-woods, and emerging on the race course, drops into a dogged 
trot through the deep sand. The race course — but that is a place 
for a mad, scrambling dash; perched with brothers, and sisters too, 
on the bare back of father's horse. What need to run afoot: foot 
races come at dance time, and that will have to wait until the harvest 
is in. Dance time — Lanso hums the songs. "Yes, I know them all ; 
next time I, too, will dance. . . ." 

It is lighter when Lanso turns back: all the Havasupai are astir. 
Acrid smoke begins to drift over the willow thickets; ethereal strata 
that rest in the still air against the towering rock walls; walls that 
stretch to the winter home high on the plateau above. There in the 
clearing is his home; the willow-thatched dome for rainy days, the 
branch-covered, dirt-roofed, box-like shade for refuge from the mid- 
day sun, and Hat's sand-drifted hut merging in the swell of the creek 
bank. 

Lanso scents breakfast in the bubbling clay pot, the inexhaustible 
pot that stands day-long with open-mouthed hospitality extended 
to all comers. But even a cold-whetted appetite will not tempt him 
to a sidelong foray on the mess; no, there was bravery needed for the 

179 



i8o 



American Indian Life 



sharp reproach and unbearable ridicule meted out to unmannerly 
pilferers. Better to wait until Round-one, Hat's wife, should call 
the family, Lanso, her nephew, not last among them, to the stew of 
ground corn and big-horn meat, little loaves of corn meal tied in the 
husks and baked in the embers, sweet mescal juice, and salt from the 
cave far down the canyon. Then he would creep up to the elders 
grouped on the ground around the pots and baskets, and from the 
side of Fox, his favorite uncle, beg for tasty bits fished out with 
sharpened twigs, and to take his turn at the brimming, horn ladles. 

"Now," said old Sinyella, "the brush is burned and our fields are 
cleared: to-day we will plant." So, off the whole family trooped; 
men and children on horses, the women, their babies strapped to the 
cradle-board in their arms, trudging along beside them. Lanso, 
clutching hard at his grandfather's back, rocked to the easy canter 
of their horse. Here was business afoot he understood: next to the 
victims that fell before his arrows — very small creatures, indeed — - 
this would be his chief contribution to the family larder. Yesterday 
he had watched them playing shinney, gambling for the future crops, 
and he had guessed they would begin to-day. 

Down through the broad fields they rode, noting here the dam 
that spread a somewhat broken wing to scoop the creek to the level 
of the fields, there an irrigation ditch that needed mending, until 
they reached the family fields. These were Sinyella's and had 
been Sinyella's father's and grandfather's, and one day would go 
to Lanso. 

Turning out the horses to graze at the foot of the rocky slope, 
they climbed to the storage houses set high above the reach of devas- 
tating floods, plastered like swallows' nests in a crevice at the base 
of the cliff. The seed corn secured, Sinyella knelt in the field and 
scratched a hole with his pointed digging-stick. Then he prayed, 
"Grow good, corn; when your stalk grows, grow tall; grow like 
the ancient corn up there," and dropping some kernels in the hole, 
he chewed another and blew it toward the "corn," two white rocks 
high on the canyon wall. Then two short steps forward and he 
knelt to dig again. Lanso watched, and then followed; first a few 
kernels, a deft sweep to fill the hole, and then the next hill. Row 
after row they planted together under the white morning sun that 
rose to flood the canyon with its light and heat. . . . 



Havasupai Days 



181 



Back in the deep shade of the huge cotton-wood he saw his grand- 
father playing with his little brother — a toddling fellow not yet 
worthy of a name. Now he was searching for his mislaid arrows 
for he heard a twittering from a nearby bush. "Yes," Sinyella 
teased the baby, "that bird is calling to you, 'You are not a boy; 
you have no arrow to kill me; you are a girl.' " Grandfather knew 
everything: he made fine bows and arrows, and he told long stories 
in the winter evenings. "Next winter," Lanso thought, "I will 
track rabbits in the snow when it lies in the cedar glades where our 
other home is; now I must hunt down here. . . ." 

The bushes spawned boys, Lanso among them. There were birds 
to be shot, dogs to be worried, deadfalls to be looked to, horses to 
be watered, sprawled over, and raced. They all ran down the can- 
yon to Coyote's, where there was that curious Navaho visitor to 
watch. Mornings are short when there are cliffs to scale, tanning 
to watch, flat cactus to roll for arrow-marks, food to beg from some 
friend — and relatives lived everywhere; Wooden-leg to listen to as 
he told of his trip to the Walapai people to fetch a bride, mock 
ambushes in the willows, and the creek, with its cooling embrace 
as it closes overhead. . . . 

II 

Panamida drove his horses down the creek bank in a cloud of 
dust. Standing belly deep, they sluiced the cool water through their 
outstretched throats. Panamida let it swirl around his dangling 
ankles; here was relief from the afternoon heat. Bending low he 
could look up-stream beneath the vaulting willows where the women 
were filling their water-baskets. "Fox," one called to him. "Fox," 
indeed! Who was this who did not know that they had begun to 
call him Panamida since his marriage. Couldn't she see that these 
three were Left-hand's horses: Left-hand, to whom he had given 
a big blanket, a black Hopi shirt, and much dried meat, all for 
Gathawinga when he had first gone to live at her father's and work 
for him. "When I have a son, I will build my own house on my 
family fields; Sinyella will give me a place," he thought. He knew 
he was to have a son: only yesterday Hat's girl had made a string- 
figure that resembled a boy. 

Shrill laughter came from the dance-ground beyond the screening 



American Indian Life 



thicket: the women were playing hiding games and tossing dice 
over there. He laughed abruptly; Swollen-wrist's voice came bel- 
lowing the song, 

"My tally sticks; 

I want them to come back; 

I am nearly dead." 

"That fellow never does win the stakes," thought Panamida. 
"Well, those women should cook now for the dance to-night: later I 
will join them for the racing." 

Panamida turned the horses out and sauntered down the creek 
side to Two-wives' sweat lodge, where a dozen breechclouted men 
were lounging about in the sand. One could usually find them 
here, gossiping through the midday heat. While they waited a 
turn to enter, old Corn-thief droned recollections of his youth: 
"... We found a flock of mountain sheep, with several rams among 
them. I shot a very big one, the others all ran off. The wounded 
ram jumped down the cliff, and ran along a very narrow ledge. I 
and Hat's father slid down from rock to rock, and followed him along 
that ledge until he stopped abruptly at its end. Suddenly he turned 
and dashed back at us, his head held down sideways. I flattened 
myself against the wall, Hat's father beside me; there was hardly 
room. The ram struck Hat's father, throwing him off the ledge: it 
is very high there. The ram stood quite still; those above me shot 
at him; when he was hit, he too tumbled headlong. Next day we 
tramped down the trail and found the body in the canyon. We 
carried it away, and dug a hole to bury it; we didn't have time to 
burn it. . . ." Panamida tried to recall Hat's father's name: no 
one said it now that he was dead. 

Some one carried freshly heated stones into the little dome-shaped 
lodge. Panamida followed the next three to enter; there should be 
four at each of their four "sweats." He crouched down close to them 
on the carpet of leaves. It was blinding dark inside the tightly 
blanketed lodge. It was hot; whatever he touched burned. Sweat 
began to pour into his eyes and down his back. His hair felt dry and 
burning at the roots; each breath was a gulp of liquid fire that seared 
his nostril-edges and his throat. It was intensely still. Suddenly 
his neighbor commenced a song; he joined; that was better. Now 
there was a sharp hiss as the leader threw a handful of water on the 



Havasupai Days 

rocks: he gasped, the steam was choking and the heat suddenly un- 
bearable. He bowed his head close to the ground between his feet to 
suck in the cooler air there; then he raised himself slowly. Sweat 
still streamed from him; every muscle was relaxed; every ache was 
gone; he felt pure and renewed. Struggling out beneath the door 
flap, he stood up in the sunlight, poised on the creek bank, and 
plunged into the stream. He gasped ; his breath was sharply driven 
out; but his skin tingled, his muscles quivered, he felt exhilarated. 

Many races had been run when Panamida reached the dance- 
ground. He would not ride, though he had sung over his colt to 
make him fleet. Fragment-of-rock, his youngest brother, should 
ride, and he would bet. He would be chief when his father died: 
he must be dignified now. He sat beside Gathawinga and her 
mother, She-chews-men, who were weaving baskets. "The Navaho 
have come," he whispered to Gathawinga, "I have given one a 
basket of shelled corn for his big blanket for you: I have his horse 
too, for two big buckskins and a little corn." He went toward the 
visitors: "Well, you have only one knot in your string now; to- 
night we dance. Ten sleeps ago when you went to tell your chief to 
share our harvest bounty there were eleven. It is nearly sundown ; 
the dance-boss has spread the meat and bread on a bed of willow 
leaves ; guests must eat everything." 

He drew back with his relatives that the Navaho and Hopi might 
eat first. Though they had not brought their women, these strangers 
could be trusted here, especially the Hopi, who lived so well and 
knew all manner of strange things, yet it was laughable to see them 
trotting by afoot when a man should ride. 

But the enemy, those Yavapai; Panamida knew them too. He 
recalled the previous autumn when the owls were warning, "Some 
one comes from the south : hoo hu." And they had come climbing 
down into the canyon in the early dawn. He recalled the alarm; 
the women and children scrambling up to hide on the cliffs; the 
day-long pursuit up the canyon, the skirmish, and the enemy fleeing 
again. Then the Yavapai, tiring, had taken refuge on a little hill. 
"Good," Chief Manakadja had said. "We are hungry now: some 
of you ride back and fetch us food." After they had eaten they felt 
braver. Two took thick buckskins, which they hung from their bows 
before them. Panamida, crouching with arrow set, had followed 



183 



184 



American Indian Life 



in this shelter with the others. Boldly they marched up the hill, 
Yavapai arrows raining harmlessly on the napping skins. Suddenly 
the carriers dipped their shields and the hidden archers let fly. 
They had nearly reached the summit, when Wasakwivama, who held 
a skin, was hit. "My arm is getting weak; I can't hold it up much 
longer; we had better go back." A second time they tried: the 
Yavapai arrows were exhausted, they were rolling rocks. Panamida 
chuckled at the recollection of his foolhardy spring, the sudden jerk 
that sent an unwary enemy sprawling down the slope to be pounced 
on and dispatched. Well, another feat like that and they might 
call him a chief even before his father died. The Yavapai had fled 
in the night, but they would return. "Yes," he ruefully reflected, 
"they like to come; they always kill so many. . . ." 

Moonlight spread across the clearing as they danced: the eastern 
cliffs stood sharply black against the sky. The song ended, and the 
group around the pole melted away. Sinyella rose in his place 
among the watching families. "My own land, hear me. Let all 
of us remain alive always. I want to live well always. Ground, 
hear me." He prayed to the rocks, the ground, the creek: he told 
the young men to work hard, to dance well, not to be quarrelsome, as 
chiefs always spoke in the lull between the dances. Paiya, the best 
singer, again took up his place, facing the pole; Panamida, with the 
drum, stepped beside him; quickly others formed the circle with 
them. Shoulder to shoulder they stood ; fingers intertwined. Paiya 
began to sing to the drum beats: 

"A fresh wind in that country, 
Girls dance circling." 

He had dreamed that he had gone to that far land where he had seen 
them dancing. The others caught up the refrain: they stood sing- 
ing for some minutes. Then when they sang in unison Paiya sig- 
naled and all began circling to the left with a short, sidewise shuf- 
fling step. Slowly the circle swung, fifty men in their gala dress, 
girls with their jingling ornaments ; over and over they sang the song, 
to bring it to an end when the leader reached his starting point. 
They stood hardly a minute: none dropped out. "Nidjanwi," sev- 
eral prompted; so Paiya began the favorite: 



Havasupai Days 



185 



"Nidjanwi, I do it; 
I am the man who names himself; 
Maidens stand alongside." 

Soon all were chanting, and the circle moved again. Excitement 
was high; the old people called out encouraging compliments; girls 
shouldered their way beside partners of their choice; reluctant Na- 
vaho were laughingly forced into the throng. Panamida felt some 
one pushing against his thigh; there was little Lanso, his older 
brother's boy: "Yes, come in," as he made space. Another song, and 
they stopped to rest. Navaho paid a trifle to their partners for re- 
lease. Now a grotesque figure dashed from the . obscurity of the 
night; white mask, cross-barred body, yucca leaf switches in hand, 
he sprang about, whipping the laggards to the dance; adults were 
laughing, children scampering in fright, dogs barking. The dance 
commenced again. Panamida was hoarse, it was far from dawn, 
and this was only the first of three nights' dance. 

Ill 

Sinyella is half a skeptic. He sat back in the lodge and watched 
Sack, the medicine man, in the firelight beside his sister's sick grand- 
son. Let the other relatives shout to make the shaman strong: he 
would wait, if the boy died, he would kill the incompetent. The 
shaman knelt over the boy, swaying as he sang, his head to one side, 
his left knuckles clenched over his closed eyes, his clashing rattle 
in the other hand. Once he stopped rigid with open mouth, so that 
his familiar spirit might leave his chest to search for sickening ghosts 
outside the house. Then he rose and went out into the dark. Sin- 
yella heard his spirit halloing and whistling as it returned to him 
out there. The shaman reentered and resumed his singing. He 
put his lips to the boy's forehead that the spirit might go in search 
of the sickness. He sucked the spirit back with a gulp, spat into his 
palm, and triumphantly exhibited its contents, some little white 
thread-like worms. "That was hard for me, but I have taken out 
all the sickness; there is no more there now." Well, the boy's father 
would give Sack a big blanket, but Sinyella decided that he, at any 
rate, would wait. 



1 86 American Indian Life 

Musing as he waded through the crusted snow to his own lodge s 
snugly in the cedar thickets, he thought: Sack is young, he may no 
be much good, perhaps his spirit is weak. But I don't know much 
about these things: there's that star up there, Pagioga, the man- 
snatcher, and sometimes there are ghosts. I pray too : "Sun, my rela- 
tive," I say, "do something for me. You make me work so I 
do anything: make good things for us: keep me always as I am now 
... Of late his ears had been frequently ringing; ghosts were win 
pering to him. Suddenly he shouted, "Huuuu; no, though you t 
that way, I am not going to die." 

It was well that they had collected a good store of pine nuts and 
wild seeds in the autumn after they left the canyon; the snow was 
thigh deep this winter. It was bitter cold; men and birds would 
freeze ; the firewood on the ground was covered. But deep snow soon 
exhausted hunted deer and antelope, and there would be no lack of 
drinking water here on the plateau. The laden trees brought back 
to him that long past day when his father found the Navaho woman 
lost in the snow and took her to wife. He remembered other Na- 
vaho ; those he had fought, those whose horses he had carried off, 
those'who had despoiled him on a trading trip to the Hopi. There 
had been many a trip eastward to the Hopi villages, where the Na- 
vaho, quondam enemies, came to trade too. Presents exchanged, 
friendships renewed in night-long talks, buckskins and horn la '---i 
traded for blankets, he would turn his packed horses back for te : 
fortnight's journey across the arid wastes toward his canyon home 
There he would wait the coming of the Walapai, his blood brothers, 
from the west. Or, if they did not come, he would carry the Hopi 
woven stuffs to trade in their country. Once he had even penetrated 
beyond their range to the Mohave in the low land of the Colorado 
River, where, astounded at his effrontery, they had permitted him 
to stay and peaceably trade. 

In all countries they knew him well: that was why people called 
him chief. He made himself a chief. True, his grandfather had 
been chief, like his fathers before him. But his own father was 
never chief ; no one would call him that; he was a good-for-nothing. 
Now when I die, he thought, my two oldest sons will share it, as they 
will my fields. I have taught them both to talk like chiefs. 

As stooping, he lifted the doorflap of his dome-shaped house 



Havasupai Days 



i8 7 



he sensed to the full the flood of warmth and light. This was his 
own, these his people, and it was always good to be at home. The 
group reclining about the central fire broke off their cheerful chatter 
to greet him: back under the dark eaves he could hear the children, 
nominally asleep, giggling over some fine mischief. "The Walapai 
have come to ask our young men to join them next spring in a raid on 
the Paiute across the Grand Canyon; Panamida wants to go," they 
told him. 

"Panamida will fight them soon enough, let him but stay at home." 

"Panamida, younger brother, some nice Walapai girl will say to 
you, 'Here's a roasted lizard,' " said Grediva, mocking the gruff 
Walapai speech, amid the laughter of her relatives at the thought of 
eating lizard. 

Sinyella smiled drowsily at the firelit faces: yes, all his own 
people. At his side he heard Lanso, "Grandfather, tell us just one 
story. Don't refuse this time; the snakes will not bother now, it is 
winter." Sinyella sat back where the children were listening, lying 
in the darkness. "Wolf and Coyote lived far to the west close to the 
ocean. Wolf said to Coyote, 'This country holds no game, no deer, 
no antelope. All we eat is rats ; that's all we kill ; that's the only meat 
we have. I think I want you to go right down in the water, way 
down to the bottom of the ocean.' Many elk lived under the water. 
C )yote tried: he went close to the water and put his head down, but 
felt afraid. 'I'm afraid to go down: I want you to go.' Wolf 
said, 'All right, I will go down and hunt. I will hunt a big elk and 
drive it right out. I will come out again after four sleeps.' " . 

Leslie Spier 



Earth-tongue, a Mohave 



EARTH-TONGUE'S earliest recollection was of the dim, cool house, 
where he picked bits of charcoal out of the soft sand and crumbled 
it against his hand. Once a cricket appeared on the wattled wall, 
suddenly went back in when he thrust at it, and only a stream of 
dry soil sifted forth. And then there was the terrifying time when 
voices burst loudly into his sleep, people crowded in but stood help- 
lessly awkward, w T hile his father's brother shot insults of stolid hate 
into the ceaseless flood of his wife's vituperation. As the woman 
turned to beat a girl lurking in the corner and the man interposed 
and flung her off, Earth-tongue burst into bawling and clung to 
his mother. He saw the angry woman stamp on pot after pot, tear 
open her coils of shredded bark and strew them into the fire, and 
then, suddenly silent, load her belongings into a carrying-frame and 
stagger out. The frame caught in the door: as she tore it through, 
the contents crashed, and a laugh rose in the house; but Earth-tongue 
sobbed long. 

He was larger when he paddled with other children at the edge 
of the slough; but still very small as he first remembered himself 
seeing the great, stretching river that drew by with mysterious, 
swirling noises in its red eddies. He and his little brother were 
put into a huge pot which his father and another man pushed before 
them across stream: their hair as it coiled high on their heads was 
just visible over the edge as they swam. And then followed an in- 
terminable trudge somewhere through the dust, relieved only by 
rides on his father's back, and on his grandmother. 

He was older when he shot his first bow; when at dusk he caught 
a woodpecker in its hole and would not let go though it hacked 
desperately at his clasped hands, until a half-grown cousin took it 
from him to imprison under a turned jar for the night. His father 
wove a cage the next day, and the captive was installed, but remained 
wild, and one morning was dead. And then came the time when the 
boys of Mesquite-water challenged those of his settlement on a hot, 

1S9 



190 



American Indian Life 



summer day- after the inundation had half dried, and they slung 
lumps of mud at each other from the ends of long willow poles. 

There were other events that must have fallen soon after this 
period, but which he did not remember: when he rolled his hair 
into long, slim cylinders, began to measure how nearly it reached 
his hip, and made his first advances to girls. 

Even before this he had dreamed of IVIastamho, gigantic on the 
peak Avikwa'me in the great, dark, round house full of peoples; 
of the two Ravens singing of dust whirls and war and of the far 
away clumps of cane waiting to be cut into flutes; and of the river, 
drawn from its source to wash away the ashes and bones of Mata- 
vilya where the pinnacles stand in the gorge at House-post-water, 
He knew later that he had dreamed these things as a little boy, 
even while he was still in his mother; he did not yet think about them, 
except when the old man his grandfather, and his father and uncles, 
sang of them. 

One day a runner came up the valley and shouted pantingly that 
strangers had appeared from the east at dawn and killed a woman 
and two children at Sand-back, besides wounding a man and his 
younger brother. The men leaped for their weapons; the women 
called in their children, loaded themselves with property, and soon 
began to track northward in a straggling, excited stream. Earth- 
tongue pulled down his bow and raked among the roof thatch 
for such arrows as he could assemble. Then he joined his kinsmen 
and male neighbors who stood in a group in front of one of the 
shades, exclaiming and pointing at a smoke that rose down the valley. 
Bundles of crude, blunt arrows projected behind their hips, shoved 
under cord belts; and many had clubs dangling from their wrists. 
Earth-tongue did not own a club: he had never seen battle; and he 
hung about the outside of the cluster of seasoned men. 

Soon, refugees from the nearer settlements began to arrive; and 
then a body of fighting men from up the valley, bedaubed for war. 
Earth-tongue's kinsmen merged with them; and as they proceeded 
south, growing in numbers, they met ever more women and children, 
and finally those from the point of attack, until, not far away in the 
cotton-woods, they came upon the men of Sand-back. The enemy 
were Halchidhoma from far down-stream, they were now informed, 
not Walapai as at first conjectured. They had avoided the river, 



Earth-tongue, a Mohave 191 

traversing the desert to hide in the Walapai mountains and descend 
at night upon the nearer tip of the Mohave land. They had long 
since gone off — sixty they were said to number, as they were seen to 
file over the rocks far above the stream at Pinnacles. They had 
looted and burnt only the group of houses at Sand-back, killed the 
woman, and lightly wounded with an arrow one of the men who 
fought back from a distance: the other reported casualties turned 
up safe. But the enemy had carried off the woman's head, and 
would dance about its skin. Earth-t'ongue gazed at the collapsed 
houses, their charred posts smoking on the mass of sand; and that 
night he watched the beheaded woman's cremation. There was 
much talk of retaliation, but an immediate attack would have found 
the Halchidhoma prepared or perhaps removed. 

So some months elapsed without a move being made; and mean- 
while Earth-tongue became married. In the turmoil of the Hal- 
chidhoma invasion, as party after party trooped by, he had been at- 
tracted by the sight of a girl, barely but definitely passed out of child- 
hood, and only a little younger than himself, # who halted, leaning 
under her laden carrying-frame, behind her mother, as their group 
paused for an excited colloquy. He saw that the girl noted his eyes 
on her and glanced away, and he knew, from the people she was with, 
that her name was Kata. Not long after, he began to find errands or 
companions that took him to her settlement. Soon a mutual famili- 
arity of each other's presence was established, the purport of which 
was manifest even though direct speech between the two young 
people was infrequent and brief. Both were shy; until one after- 
noon a blind old man, the girl's father's uncle, who knew of Earth- 
tongue's repeated presence from the references of the family, ad- 
dressed him and her directly. "Why do you not marry?" he said. 
"Persons do not live long. Soon you will be old like myself, unable 
to please yourselves. It is good that you sleep and play together. 
You, young man, should stay here the night." Neither Earth-tongue 
nor the girl answered. But he remained through the evening meal 
and after; and when the house was dark, went silently to where'she 
lay. The next day, he stayed on; the day after, returned briefly 
to his home; and from then on, spent increasing time at his new 
abode, where, without a word having been spoken, he slipped into 
a more and more recognized status. He did not work, unless special 



192 American Indian Life 

occasion called, such as assisting with a seine-net; and Kata only 
occasionally helped her relatives farm. Instead, they spent much 
time together, lolling under the shade, toying or teasing each other, 
or listening to their elders. Sometimes he sang softly as he lay by 
her, or she bent over him searching his head or untangling his clus- 
tered locks, or tried to draw the occasional hairs from his face with 
her teeth; and ever she laughed more freely. So the days followed 
one another. 

When at last the Mohave were ready, it was announced that they 
would once for all destroy the Halchidhoma. The entire nation 
was to move and appropriate the enemy land. Soon they started, 
most of the men in advance, weaponed and unburdened save for 
gourds of maize meal at their hips; water they did not have to carry 
since they followed the river. Behind tramped the women, child- 
ren, and old men, under loads. Foods, blankets of bark and rabbit 
fur' fish nets, metates, household property, and the most necessary 
pottery vessels were taken. The remainder of their belongings and 
stored provisions were buried or hidden away : every house in the val- 
ley stood empty. 

For five days they walked. Then the men suddenly surrounded a 
group of settlements. These were the houses of the Kohuana, a far 
down-stream tribe, wasted by wars with their neighbors, until the 
pressed remnant had sought refuge half a day's journey above the 
Halchidhoma to whom they were united, less by positive friendship 
than by common foes and parallel fortunes. For the Halchidhoma, 
too, remembered having once lived populously among the welter of 
tribes in the broad bottom lands below the mouth of the Gila. With 
the Kohuana the Mohave had no direct quarrel; and though they ar- 
rived armed and overpowering, they proclaimed themselves kins- 
men, and anounced that they had come as guests. By night the Ko- 
huana houses overflowed with the mob of Mohave families. Ko- 
huana messengers were dispatched to summon the Halchidhoma to 
battle at White-spread-rock-place, if they were not afraid. Such 
challenge the outnumbered people could not find it in their man- 
hood to evade. So the next day saw them in line at the appointed 
field, barely a hundred strong, against perhaps four hundred that 
the Mohave mustered after setting a guard over their families. 
Earth-tongue went into battle with much inward excitement, but 



Earth-tongue, a Mohave 193 

little'fear, and listened obediently to the admonitions of his seasoned 
kinsmen. Even before arrows could reach, the shooting began. Be- 
fore long, arrows flew feebly by, and then it became necessary to 
twist sharply sidewise to avoid them. At this distance the two lines 
shot at each other, taunting and leaping, while, in the rear, half- 
grown boys and a few old men helped to gather up and replenish 
bundles of arrows. What the Halchidhoma lacked in frequency of 
shots, they partly made up in greater openness of target; and before 
long, struck men began to withdraw temporarily on each side. The 
Mohave could have made short work by charging in a body with 
their clubs; but they had asked for an open stand-up fight, and be- 
sides found pleasure in the game, which fell increasingly to their 
advantage. For hours they sweated in the sun, gradually and 
irregularly forcing the Halchidhoma line back, and shouting when- 
ever one of the foe was carried off. 

At last the leaders called that it was time to cease, and defied the 
foe to resume in the same spot on the fourth day. Then they trooped 
victoriously home, without a fatality, though a few, weakened from 
bleeding or with parts of shafts broken off in them, were carried on 
the backs of companions. Earth-tongue had been struck twice. 
One arrow had grazed the skin of his flank when he became over- 
confident and failed to bend his body with sudden enough vigor. 
Then, one of three shafts that came toward him almost at once had 
imbedded itself a finger-joint's depth in the front of his thigh, and 
hung there until he hastily plucked it out. Neither wound bled 
profusely, especially after a bit of charcoal was reached him to rub 
in for stanching; and he returned stiff, tired, and proud. The Hal- 
chidhoma losses were severer. None of them appeared to have 
fallen dead on the field ; but at least half had been struck, and a num- 
ber so vitally or often that they would die. 

For four days the Mohave treated their wounds, talked of the next 
battle, and ate their hosts' provisions. Then they set out. But the 
Halchidhoma had sent their families down-stream and taken up a 
new stand farther back. Here they joined once more, and the fight 
went on as before but with ever more preponderance to the Mohave, 
until these, wearied by the noon sun, contemptuously drew off to the 
river to drink. The Halchidhoma seized the occasion to run to 
their children and women, set these across the river, and strike east 



194 American Indian Life 

over the desert.' When the victors reappeared, the fugitives were 
far. The Mohave thereupon decided to occupy their fields and 
houses until the dispossessed might come to drive them out; which 
the latter, by this time safely received among the Maricopa far 
across the desert on the Gila, had no intention of doing. However, 
the Mohave lived nearly a year in the land of the Halchidhoma, ad- 
justing themselves as they could; and returned only as the next flood 
and planting time approached, taking the Kohuana along to settle 
among themselves, where these enforced visitors remained for some 
years. 

Before the stay in the Halchidhoma country was over, Earth- 
tongue and Kata had drifted apart. The derangement of accus- 
tomed residence, enforced with others, Earth-tongue's pride as an in- 
cipient warrior, the fact that no child was born, all contributed to 
separate them increasingly. Each formed new interests while 
vaguely jealous of the other's; and in the end Earth-tongue brought 
not Kata but another girl to his parents' house. 

Soon after his first child was born,— a daughter, called Owich 
like the sisters of himself, his father, and his father's father— Earth- 
tongue grew restless for adventure, and, the time being one of peace, 
joined himself to those that would travel. Ten or twenty in number, 
they would go out: too few to excite apprehension of treacherous 
intent, too many to be made away with safely. Each carried maize, 
water, his weapons, and whatever he might wish to trade. On 
shorter journeys they prided themselves on being able to travel at 
a trot four days without food, and with only such drink as the desert 
might afford, chewing perhaps a bit of willow as a relief for the 
dryness of their mouths. But these hardships they underwent 
mostly in emulation, or toward the last of a return with Mohave land 
before them. Again and again Earth-tongue went down the river, 
through Yuma, Kamia, Halyikwamai, and Cocopa settlements, to the 
flat shores of the salt sea; east into the Walapai mountains and down 
into the chasm of the Havasupai, where he saw strange-speaking 
and strangely dressed Hopi and Navaho, heard of their stone towns, 
and brought home their belts and, once, a blanket of white cotton. 

To the northwest he visited the Chemehuevi and other Paiutes 
about their scattered springs, and ate their foods of seeds and wild 
fruits, some familiar, some strange; and mescal and sometimes deer. 



Earth-tongue, a Mohave 



195 



Theirs was a strange language too, but he had heard a little from the 
few Chemehuevi who lived at the northern extreme of Mohave val- 
ley and beyond it on Cotton-wood island; and many of his compan- 
ions could speak more. They went from Paiute band to band, to 
where the river no longer flows from the north but from the east, be- 
yond the Muddy, and found each group like the last in customs, but 
of new foods. They listened to the stories of the Paiute, who 
dreamed of the mountain Niivant as the Mohave do of Aikwa'me, 
and to whom they sang their songs, which the Paiute wished to hear. 

To the west were many tribes, all different tongued, but mostly 
easy to understand a little when one knew Chemehuevi. There 
were the Vanyume on their river that dried into nothing and left 
them always half-starved; the Hanyuvecha in the range of great 
pines beyond ; northward, about Three-Mountains, the Kuvahye, 
adjoined by other mountaineers, little tribes, unwarlike, friendly to 
the visitors, some of whom they hailed as old friends. They offered 
no smoke, but gave tobacco crushed in a mortar with shells; which 
Earth-tongue and his companions ate in courtesy, and were nearly 
all made to sweat and vomit violently thereby. From a crest near 
here they looked over a vast plain beyond, in which shimmered what 
one of his companions said were large lakes. He had been there and 
seen the people, who lived in long houses of rushes, — a hundred fires 
in line within one house, — and ate rush roots, and slept on rushes, and 
at night worms came up and troubled the sleepers. And in the 
tumbled range on which they stood, but beyond them, were the Like- 
Mohave, a very little like them in speech, but naked, unkempt, and 
.poor. Them Earth-tongue saw, but not in their own houses. 

And going out again, he traversed the land of the tribes to the 
southwest, unfriendly, half-sullen, and dangerous to small parties. 
The Hakwicha dug wells and ate mesquite; beyond them were 
people in the mountains, about hot springs, who sang to turtie shells 
instead of gourds; and still farther, stretching down to the ocean 
that one could see from their peaks, lived the Foreign-Kamia, speak- 
ing almost like the real Kamia, but knowing nothing of farmed foods, 
eating rattle-snakes, and a hostile lot to venture among. They had 
some grudges to pay off to the Mohave for plundered settlements, 
but were not a people to travel far from their homes even for re- 
venge. 



196 



American Indian Life 



The Yavapai, too, Earth-tongue came to know, though theirs 
was not an attractive country to visit. They dreamed and sang like 
the Mohave, but of other animals; and some of their stories were the 
same. Their neighbors and friends were the Roaming-Yavapai, 
a small-statured, sharp-eyed people, wearing their hair flowing, 
fierce lance fighters, taciturn, violent, untrustworthy; but inclined 
favorably to the Mohave in spite of the utter unintelligibility of their 
speech because they knew them through the Yavapai as traditionally 
hostile, like themselves, against the Maricopa and that people of 
innumerable houses, the Pima. These last Earth-tongue never came 
to know save on the field of battle. 

One early summer, as the river was flooding, its rise suddenly 
stopped. The inundation being wont to grow in interrupted stages 
the people waited quietly for its resumption. But the water fell 
back and back. Then some began to declare that it might not rise 
again, and advised planting at once before the moist ground should 
dry: but others pointed out that high water was yet due, and had 
often come late, and that present planting in that case would cause 
the seed to wash out and be lost. So nearly all waited with concern 
and much discussing; until finally the river was wholly back within 
its banks and dropping decisively. Then they knew that nothing 
more was to be hoped for that season, and men and women hastened 
to save what they might of the crop. But many of the fields had 
remained untouched by water, and most of the others were already 
half dry. In some, the maize and beans never sprouted; in some 
they came up indeed, but soon wilted; and though the women carried 
water in jars, only small patches could be effectively served in this 
hand fashion. 

Soon, every one knew that famine impended, and that so few houses 
would grow even enough harvest for another seeding, that the year 
after would also be hard to survive. They gathered every wisp of 
wild seed plants in the uncultivated bottoms; but these wild seeds, 
too, had come up thin, and the crop of mesquite pods was pitiful. 
The women labored faithfully, and the children watched over the 
scattered maize; yet though the grain ripened, the scattered stalks 
were too few to keep any house through the winter. Some families 
did not pick even an ear. A moon after harvest time, the crop was 
consumed; by winter, the last of the other stores. The men fished 



Earth-tongue, a Mohave 



197 



daily, but the sloughs and ponds had never filled and were soon 
seined out, and the river's yield was uncertain and far insufficient. 
Every one was gaunt; the children lay listlessly about; sickness grew. 

Earth-tongue's wife, and his older brother's, had planted with his 
mother in his father's ancestral field, which lay low and was long- 
proved rich. So they fared better than many. Nevertheless, before 
spring the emaciated bodies of two children and an old woman had 
been burnt and Earth-tongue had three times sung himself hoarse 
as they lay dying. 

The young men went out with their bows, and now and then re- 
turned with a bird or gopher or badger, but oftener empty-handed. 
People who had new belongings went to the Walapai to trade for 
mescal and deer meat. Whole families trudged to visit the Cheme- 
huevi, until they brought back word that these hosts too were eaten 
out. At last not a day passed without columns of smoke from pyres 
visible somewhere in the valley. It was a terrible year and long 
remembered before the end of another summer brought partial 
abatement. 

So numerous had been the deaths from bowel flux and cough, 
that shaman after shaman fell a victim to the anger of the kin of those 
he had attempted to save. Yellow-thigh, a powerful man and not 
very old, had lost two patients during the famine, and three more at 
intervals since. Mutterings were frequent; but no one had found 
opportunity, or dared, to work vengeance on him. One morning, 
Earth-tongue and a friend, sauntering up valley on some errand, 
turned to a house before which Yellow-thigh lay, for those there 
were kinsmen of his. No men were about; and as the two visitors 
stood in the door, his friend on sudden impulse whispered to Earth- 
tongue, ''Let us kill him." So they sat down for a little and passed 
the news of the day, then arose, Earth-tongue reaching for his bow 
and four cross-pointed arrows, with the remark that they were going 
to shoot doves. The shaman grunted assent and the pair passed out. 

For a time they traversed the brush, planning the deed. At the 
mesa edge they broke two stones to sharp edges, and then returned. 
Yellow-thigh lay under the shade-roof with closed eyes, breathing 
regularly. The friend went by him to look into the house, and find- 
ing it empty, nodded. Earth-tongue, who had approached, bent 
suddenly down and struck with all his might at the sleeper's head. 



198 



American Indian Life 



The shaman pushed himself to a sitting position as the blood began to 
pour from the mangled side of his face. The friend started back, 
then plunged forward to finish the man, and swung; but his ex- 
cited arm brought the weapon down only on the victim's knee. 
Then he staggered off, scarcely able in fright and emotion to drag his 
own legs. Earth-tongue, seeing the shaman still sitting, strode for- 
ward again and with both hands drove the point of the stone through 
the top of his skull. Two women who had been going through each 
other's hair in the shadow of the brush fence outside, half turned at 
the noise and shrieked, while Earth-tongue dashed after his com- 
panion, seized his hand, and dragged him forward. They ran 
through the willows and at last lay down to pant in hiding; and here, 
after they had quieted, Earth-tongue laughed at his friend's faltering 
stroke and steps. Then they went on, still keeping to cover, until 
around the second bend they swam the river. 

On the other side, old men were gaming with poles and hoop, and 
others watched. The two sat down and looked on. Three times, 
four times, until it was early afternoon, the players bet and threw 
their poles and one or the other finally took up the stakes. Then 
Earth-tongue said, "I have killed a shaman, the large man at Sloping- 
gravel." 

"Yes, kill him," answered one of the old men, thinking he was 
boasting of an empty intent; and a spectator added, "Indeed, it would 
be well. Too many persons are dying." 

"I have killed him," Earth-tongue said again, and they began to 
believe him. So they went to the houses. Soon word came that the 
shaman was dead; and then his kinsmen arrived, angry and threaten- 
ing, and accusations flew back and forth, while Earth-tongue stood 
unmoved and silent but wary. The kinsmen finally challenged to a 
stick fight the next day, and withdrew to burn the dead man. 

The people of the settlement commended Earth-tongue and prom- 
ised to engage for him; and in the morning they and all his kin and 
the kin of those whom the shaman had brought to their death, gath- 
ered in the center of a large playing field. Each man carried a wil- 
low as thick as his forearm and reaching to his neck; and in his left 
hand, a shorter parrying stick. The challengers appeared, some- 
what fewer in number and with tear-marked faces, but enraging their 
opponents by crying the names of their dead parents and grandpar- 



Earth-tongue, a Mohave 199 

ents. Then the two bodies, spreading into irregular lines, rushed at 
each other. Each man swung at an antagonist's head, now with his 
staff held in one hand, now in both. Blows beat down on heads 
through the guard, rained on shoulders, bruised knuckles, and the 
willows clashed amid the shouts. Now and then a staff broke and a 
contestant ran back to seize a new one. The fighters sweated, panted, 
rubbed blood out of their eyes and staggered forward and back as 
the lines swayed in the clamor. Once or twice a maddened fighter, 
running in under his opponent's strokes, seized his hair to belabor 
him with his parry-club ; whereupon shouts of "Bad, bad! no! no! 
release!" arose and a multitude of rescuers' blows drove him back. 
The shaman's side were getting the worst of it, but rallied again and 
again without being driven wholly to their end of the field. Strokes 
became fewer and feebler. Weary arms could no longer rise. 
Fighter after fighter leaned on his stick, or sat on the ground in the 
rear. Each side taunted the other to come on again; and at last they 
drew apart, every man panting, bruised, and weary, but satisfied 
at the damage he had inflicted. No heads had been broken and no 
one died, though some were sick for a few days from maggots that 
had bred in the scalp under their clotted hair; and then talk died 
down and the enmity gradually subsided. Earth-tongue won the 
praise of all the Mohave who were not directly involved. 

Once, runners came from the Yuma to invite to an attack on the 
Cocopa at the mouth of the river. A hundred and twenty Mohave 
went down. The kohota or play-chief of the northern Mohave 
asked for captives, although he already had several; and Earth-ton- 
gue was one of the men whom he requested to carry food and water 
for the prisoner's return journey, and to guard against their escape. 

The Yuma contingent was even larger than the Mohave one; and 
the attack was made at daybreak. It was not much of a fight. The 
first house entered gave the alarm and the settlement scattered amid 
yells. Only two Cocopa were killed by the Yuma and two young 
women, sisters, called Night-hawk, captured by the Mohave. The 
latter stayed with the Yuma four days to watch the scalp dance; but 
no one of them having touched the corpses, they were not in need of 
purification, and returned home. 

The whole tribe came out to escort them to the kohota's house. 
There the captives were made to sit down, while the kohota stood up 



200 



American Indian Life 



and sang Pleiades. Then men and women, facing each other, 
danced. When the sun was at its height, they stopped, ate what 
the kohota's women brought out, then lay in the shade or gambled. 
In the afternoon the kohota called out a Chutaha singer. Soon the 
sounding jar began to boom, the people left off their play, and 
danced: three rows of young men with feathers tied in their hair, 
one row of old men, and two women standing separate. Then at 
last, as the sun was coming low, the chief came with rattles in his 
hand and at the end of a song shouted: "Let him sing who wishes 
to! Let any woman sing! I appoint no one!" Women grasped 
the rattles and carried them, one to a Tumanpa singer, others to those 
who knew Vinimulya and Vinimulya-hapacha ; and one was brought 
to Earth-tongue to sing Raven. Soon all four of the dance series 
were in progress at different places, while those women who liked 
Nyohaiva, having persuaded an old man to sing that, began to re- 
volve about him standing shoulder to shoulder. As fast as one song 
ended, the singers took up another, for the sun had nearly set, and 
the sweating women clamored for more, while the crowd of people 
stood about. 

With darkness they stopped to bathe and eat and rest, then danced 
again, singing as before and new kinds too, while off on the side, by 
the light of a fire, groups of men played hiding game to the Tud- 
hulva songs through the night. In the morning the kohota had the 
assemblage bathe, fed them once more, and sent them home to 
return two days later. 

This time they danced again all evening, all afternoon, and all 
night. As the sun rose, the kohota, still singing, took the two captives 
one by each hand, and walked toward the river. Behind him came 
the Tumanpa and Vinimulya singers, each with his crowd, and then 
the mass of people in procession. The kohota, still holding the two 
girls, ran over the bank, and every one followed. This made Mo- 
haves of the captives, and people were no longer afraid of them. 
The kohota led them back to his house, where they were to live, and 
said, "Perhaps these girls will marry and bear children, who, belong- 
ing to both tribes, will make peace when they grow up, and there will 
be no more war." So it came in part. After two years, one of the 
sisters married, and soon had a child. The other continued without 
husband. In time, formal peace was made between the Yuma and 



Earth-tongue, a Mohave 



201 



Cocopa; whereupon the kohota announced, "Since the tribes are 
friends now, let us not keep Night-hawk longer." So a party led 
her to the Yuma, where her kinsmen met and escorted her home. 
Her sister remained with her Mohave husband. 

Earth-tongue was beginning to grow old. His oldest son and 
one daughter both had children, and his hair showed first streaks 
of gray. He thought more of his youth, and commenced to remem- 
ber what he had dreamed then. He knew he had seen Matavilya 
sick and gradually dying and burned, and his ashes washed away 
by the river that Mastamho made to flow out of the ground. He 
remembered too Mastamho's house on Avikwa'me, with the mul- 
titudes inside it in rows like little children, and Mastamho instruct- 
ing them; and how he repeated after him, correctly, until Ma- 
stamho said to him, 'That is right! You know it! You have 
it! I gave it to you!" Then he had dreamed how Sky-rattle-snake 
was at last inveigled from his house far in the south ocean, and his 
head cut off on Avikwa'me. Earth-tongue saw his joints and blood 
and sweat and juices turn into eggs. From these eggs hatched Rat- 
tle-snake, Spider, Scorpion, and Yellow-ant, who went off to Three- 
Mountains and remote places, deep in the earth or high in the sky, 
and from there built four roads to all tribes. When they wish a man 
for a friend, they bite him and take his shadow home with them. 
"But another road leads from their house to my heart," Earth-tongue 
would say, "and I know what they do. And I intercept the shadow 
before Rattle-snake has led it wholly to Three-Mountains, and sing 
it back; I break the roads of spittle that Spider has begun to wind 
four times around the man's heart; and so he lives again." 

Then Earth-tongue commenced to be sent for when people were 
bitten — first his relatives, then others. He would stand up at once 
and sing to bring a cooling wind; and, reaching the sick person, 
sing over him from the north, west, south, and east, but not a fifth 
time, lest he die. Then, sending every one away but a wife or 
mother, and forbidding all drink, he would sit by the patient all 
night, singing his four songs from time to time. In the morning the 
sick person used to get up well. 

Fighting interrupted these pursuits. It was a summons again 
from the Yuma, this time against the Maricopa; and two hundred 
of the Mohave responded. The seventh night they were on Mari- 



202 



American Indian Life 



copa soil and met eighty Yuma by appointment; and in the morning 
advanced to attack. But the Maricopa had got wind of their pres- 
ence, and when the fight opened were reenforced by a vast number 
of the Pima. The Mohave and Yuma exhorted one another, and 
though man after man fell, gave ground slowly, fighting back out- 
numbered. 

At last the enemy ran all in a body against them. Part of the 
Mohave broke before the shock and fled to the north, ultimately es- 
caping. But sixty of them formed with the Yuma on a little knoll 
near the Gila, where they stood in a dense mass. As the Pima and 
Maricopa dashed against them, they dragged man after man strug- 
gling into their midst, where he was dispatched with fierce club 
blows on his head or thrusts into his face. Twice, Earth-tongue 
leaped out to grasp an opponent and fling him over his back, thus 
protecting his own skull, while his companions beat the struggling 
foe to death. The fighting grew wilder. The Pima no longer drew 
back to shoot but swirled incessantly around and into the dwindling 
cluster at bay. At last the shouts ceased; the dust began to settle; 
and all but two of the Yuma, and every man of the sixty Mohave, 
lay with crushed head or mangled body on foreign earth. 

A. L. Kroeber 



I 



The Chief Singer of the Tepecano 

THERE was unusual activity around the house of Don Pancho, a 
little thatch-roof hut of oval shape, possibly fifteen feet bv eight. 
Two large posts supported a framework of poles on which was laid 
a gabled thatching of grass. Only toward the center of the house 
could one stand upright, and a strong push would have sent tumbling 
outside, the stones heaped in a wall without the use of mortar or 
mud, which filled the space between the eaves and the bare ground. 

The unwonted stir in the house of Don Pancho did not betoken 
any epoch-making occurrence even in the uneventful historv of the 
little village of Azqueltan which sheltered the remnants of the Te- 
pecano tribe. It was merely that Don Pancho was awaiting the 
birth of his child. And so the women of the immediate neighbor- 
hood gathered inside the hut while the men conversed in low tones 
without. Francisco alone passed freely in and out. At last, after 
a longer pause within, he slipped quietlv out of the door. 

"Gracias a Dios! It is a son," he said quietly and produced from 
somewhere a bottle of sotol 1 bought on his last journey to the near- 
est "civilized'' village against this very event. The men crowded 
around him and drank heartily to the health of the newcomer. With 
true politeness they congratulated the father and then slipped awav 
into the darkness toward their own little hovels. Only the squalling 
of the infant broke upon the stillness of the mountain air. 

Again an air of unusual activity pervaded the village. Word had 
come that the cura from the neighboring town would arrive that day 
to say mass. The church and the adjoining curato had been opened 
and aired, the dirt swept from the floor and the dust from the crude 
figures of the crucifixion. For the little church was the pride 
of Azqueltan. A generation ago it had been built of adobe brick 
and stone quarried by civilized artisans, and its white front faced 
the torrid rays of the sun as valiantly as it did the sulphurous flames 
of hell. The little courtyard, too, shone with a freshly-swept air, 
not a blade of grass nor a speck of green marring its smooth surface. 

1 Agave brandy. 

203 



204 



American Indian Life 



At last sharp eyes detected a cavalcade slowly descending the tor- 
tuous path. Hastily Francisco climbed the shaking ladder to the 
roof of the church and seized the clapper. Well did he realize the 
importance of his office as mayor-domo of the church! And never 
while he lived would the Sr. Cura arrive without proper greeting! 
One of the several bells was still uncracked, and to it Francisco de- 
voted particular attention. The bells held a place hardly second to 
the church itself in Don Pancho's affections, for had they not been 
imported at enormous expense from that far away capital, the City 
of Mexico? A final clang and Francisco hastened down the quaking 
ladder to be the first to kneel before the jocund padre and kiss his 
hand. Roused by the pealing of the bells the inhabitants of the little 
valley began to wander in. Reverently they entered the church, 
kneeling on the brick floor, the men and women on opposite sides, 
while mass was said. 

The service finished, the Aguilars, Francisco and Julia, his wife, 
stood up, bearing the child. Beside them stood Juan Marquez and 
his wife, as godfather and godmother. A few drops of water re- 
sented, a few ritual words, and Mother Church had gathered an- 
other soul to her bosom. Jose Maria was the name the cura en- 
tered in his record. 

But had these intervening weeks been entirely uneventful in the 
life of little Jose or Pepe, as he was familiarly called? By no means! 
Francisco was too conscientious a man to take any chances with his 
son's welfare. For centuries before the padres had told them of God 
and Christ, the forefathers had worshiped Father Sun, Mother 
Moon and Elder Brother Morning Star. In fact it was quite ob- 
vious that God was the Sun, the Virgin Maria the Moon and Jesus 
the Morning Star. For did not the beautiful picture of the Virgin 
of Guadalupe hanging in the church show her standing on the moon? 
The two religions could not be antagonistic, but merely supplemen- 
tary, thought Francisco, as far as he thought on the subject at all. 
Nevertheless, there was no use arguing with the cura about it, for 
he would not understand. And so, immediately after the birth of 
little Pepe, Francisco made four prayer sticks with little squares of 
colored yarn attached, and went and deposited them at secret altars 
on the hills to east, north, west and south, breathing a prayer at 
each place for the health and fortune of his child. 



The Chief Singer of the Tepecano 



205 



Little Jose grew up to boyhood, his status in the world a rather 
anomalous one — a little lower than the half-blood Mexican peon on 
the rolling country to the south, a little above the pagan Huichol in 
the mountains, yet despised by both. Yet that worried him little. 
For was he not surrounded by loving parents and friends and a not 
ungenerous nature? To north and south stretched the canyon or 
barranca of the Bolanos, a great rent in the earth's crust, carved out 
through countless ages by the little silvery rivulet hiding in its bot- 
tom. Hardly more than a brook in the dry season, it swelled to an 
impassable, turbulent torrent during the rains. On either side rose 
the steep sides of the barranca, those to the east leading to the rolling, 
flat country populated by the "neighbors," the Mexicans, while to 
the west the mountains rose higher and higher to form the great 
Sierra Madre range in which lived the pagan Huichol and Cora 
Indians. Occasionally small groups of Huichol passed by or 
through the village on their way to or from their mountain homes, 
and Jose peeked at them from behind the shelter of his mother's 
skirts, and wondered at their strange dress with many little woven 
bags around the waist, their queer hats, their bows and arrows. 

"When I was your age," said old Nestor, his grandfather, "we all 
dressed as they do now. Then our wives wove us blankets and we 
made clothes of deer hide. But Ave Maria! Now we must dress 
in white cotton blouses and trousers and look like Mexicans!" 

Jose never tired of hearing Nestor tell of the glories of the days 
gone by, when the Tepecanos were a powerful people and held a 
great stretch of territory. But wars and pestilence had done their 
worst and the tribe had gradually withdrawn to the great barranca 
where Jose was born. And even there the Mexicans were gradually 
encroaching. Some married into the tribe, while the more unscru- 
pulous boldly appropriated the ancestral lands and recorded the 
first titles. 

Jose's earliest impressions, of course, were those of home, to him a 
wonderful place, and his parents most remarkable people, omnis- 
cient beyond a doubt! Surely there was nothing in the world they did 
not know or could not do! His mother in particular was the busiest 
person. As the first rays of the sun dimmed the morning star, she 
arose and put wood on the fire which had been smoldering all night 
under the pot of beans and under the comal or griddle, and by the time 



206 



American Indian Life 



the rest of the family were well awake the little, round, flat tortillas 
were toasting. These little toasted cakes of thin, unleavened corn 
dough were the staple food, not only of the Tepecano, but of millions 
of Mexicans of the peon class. Torn in half and used as a scoop to 
carry a mess of brown beans and chili sauce to the mouth — ah! Who 
could ask for anything more savory? Surely not little Jose. But 
what a drudgery it meant to his mother! Not that she considered 
it drudgery — she knew of nothing else, and it was the lot of every 
woman. 

And so Senora Aguilar bent all day — or most of it — over the stone 
metate grinding the softened, boiled corn into dough. The corn 
itself, the typical Indian corn with yellow ears, black ears, red ears 
and ears of all these colors, lay husked in a corner of the house. 
Every day a few ears would be taken, shelled and put to simmer in 
a pot with a pinch of lime to soften it. Then it had to be ground on 
the metate with a stone grinder, patted into shape and toasted on the 
griddle. At almost any hour of the day could be heard in the hut 
the sound of the muller grating against the metate, or the sharp 
"pat, pat" on the cake. When night came at last, a mass of dough 
was always ready to be prepared for breakfast. 

So Jose watched his busy mother and wondered why she took no 
time to play with him. Several times a day she took the great water 
jar on her shoulder and walked slowly with him down the long, 
winding trail to the little brook which supplied the household — yes, 
several households — with water. Occasionally, too, they bathed in 
the clear waters — in the summer. But even then the water was 
cool and soap expensive, so baths were infrequent. And then the 
water was full of wonderful animals known as chanes. No one 
could see them, of course, except in rainy weather, when they ap- 
peared as great arcs or bows in the sky, striped with colors, head in 
one spring and tail in another, as they visited. But ordinarily they 
were invisible, though their forms were well known. They had the 
bodies of serpents with horns like cattle. They were to be treated 
reverently, as they had the power of sickening all who disregarded 
them. 

"Never drink directly from the spring, Pepe," his mother warned 
him, "or the chan will enter and sting you. Dash the water into 
your mouth as your father does." 



The Chief Singer of the Tepecano 



207 



Although corn cakes and beans supplied the major part of their 
dietary, there were other foods, in season and on a smaller scale, 
other crops, tobacco, chili-peppers and squash. Squashes did not 
keep like corn or beans, unless they were cut into long strips and 
dried. More often the squashes were eaten fresh, at harvest time. 
A hole was dug in the ground and lined with stones and in this 
a fire was lighted until the stones were hot. Then the fire was re- 
moved and replaced with squashes, and the whole covered and al- 
lowed to remain all night. In the morning the squashes were per- 
fectly baked and delicious. But the best part of the squash was 
the seeds which were toasted, cracked open and the kernels eaten. 
These were indeed excellent! Occasionally the juicy centre of a 
large cactus was cooked in the same way. 

But with the advent of spring, that was the joyous time! It was 
the coming of the rains after the long dry season. The spring rains 
are the most vital factor in the life and economy of the natives of 
northern Mexico, and on them all interests settle. Then the parched 
land springs into verdure and the streams burst forth anew. Then 
the nopal, the "prickly pear 1 ' cactus, puts forth new green leaves 
which can be cleaned of their spines and boiled to an edible tender- 
ness, and the blue and purple tunas appear on their leaves. Then 
the mesquite and vamuchile trees prepare to produce their fruit. 
But best of all, it is the time of the pitahaya, that luscious fruit of the 
organ cactus. 

"The pitahayas are ripe! The pitahayas are ripe! 1 ' shouted and 
sang Jose with the other children, while their elders prepared to 
desert their villages and repair to the heights where the cacti grew 
most abundantly, there to gorge themselves until the season passed. 
All year long the great reed poles leaned against the thatched roofs 
of the houses, awaiting the joyous spring when they would be used to 
pick the pitahayas from their high branches. 

Seldom it was that little Pepe tasted flesh of any kind. To be 
sure they kept a few chickens, but the Aguilars were too poor to eat 
many of them; they were sold to the itinerant trader to take to the 
larger civilized towns. Too, the dried corn which the chickens ate 
meant just that much less for the family. Nevertheless Jose knew 
and relished the taste of chicken and eggs. A few goats, sheep, pigs 
and turkeys were kept in the neighborhood, and occasionally the 



208 



American Indian Life 



word was passed around that one was to be killed. The wealthier 
families purchased a few pounds, cut it into strips and hung it up to 
dry. For a few days, meat was added to the dietary of the Aguilar 
family. A very few cattle and horses were kept by the very opulent, 
but these were seldom killed. They represented rather the wealth of 
the owner and were sold to Mexican ranchmen. But when for one 
reason or another — generally by accident — one was killed, the word 
was noised abroad for many miles and, like buzzards, the population 
gathered to purchase or beg the meat. 

"Ah, but it was different in the old days!" exclaimed old Nestor. 
"Then the country was full of game. Ave Maria! So many deer! 
And rabbits and raccoons, ducks and pigeons! But now the Gods 
are angry at us because we have neglected them and will send us no 
more deer." 

"Is it really the Gods who send the deer, little grandfather?" asked 
Jose. 

"Surely," replied the old man. '"Are they not the pets of our 
Elder Brother, the Morning Star? When one wishes to hunt deer 
he must first fast seven days and then go to one of the sacred altars 
with a prayer stick and beads for payment and recite the old prayer 
begging Elder Brother to lend him some of his deer. Then he will 
be sure to shoot them. But he must not eat any of the first deer he 
kills, but must give it to the other people, and he must be sure to 
make candles of the fat and burn them. Of course we always used 
bow and arrows to shoot them, as they would be offended and leave 
the country if they were killed by other means." 

"How interesting!" murmured little Pepe. "And do the Gods 
keep other animals too, little grandfather?" 

"Por Dios, no! The deer are their only pets. But the scorpions 
are the cattle of the Devil and one must also say a prayer and make 
a jicara 1 full of pinole 2 with beads in order to drive them away from 
one's home. And then there are the great serpents which live in the 
mountains. One must also recite a prayer to get one of them." 

"Ave Maria!" ejaculated Jose. "Did you eat snakes too?" 

"Only small ones," laughed Nestor, "and iguanas. The large 
serpents we kept in the houses as protectors. They were brought 



1 Gourd cup. 

2 Corn meal. 



The Chief Singer of the Tepecano 



209 



home and instructed to hold any one who came to the house to rob, 
and to give the alarm by striking the ground with their tails. But 
they had to be fed bread every Thursday." Here old Nestor smiled. 
"At least that's what my grandfather told me. I never saw them 
myself!" 

It was many years before little Jose journeyed from home. There 
he played with the stones and the household objects, his dog and cat 
and his pet quail, learning the manifold secrets of the world about 
him. There were other boys nearby with whom he played; they 
had their bows and arrows — weapons discarded by their elders long 
ago — and their toys and dear possessions like boys the world over. 
There were few household objects for them to break in play, only 
a few pots and gourds, and, like all Indians, the Tepecanos seldom 
or never punished their children, preferring that they should grow 
up loving and with their spirits unbroken. An occasional trip to 
the nearest Mexican village to purchase cloth or sugar, or to the house 
of a relation a few miles away was the extent of Jose's travels. For 
sweets he had the honey which might be taken from the hollow logs 
raised on forked posts outside of the house. 

Gradually Jose learned to help his parents and, by the time he was 
fourteen, he was able to do most of the tasks expected of young men. 
He accompanied his father Francisco on trips to the hills in search of 
natural products. The leaves of the agave were one of the most 
sought-after materials. These they carried home, stripped off the 
soft green exterior and put the strong interior fibers to dry. This 
was called ixti, and from it all kinds of cord and rope were made. 
Many hours Jose sat, twisting the wheel with which his father made 
rope. At other times he helped to make adobe bricks, mixing the 
mud to a proper consistency, pressing it into moulds and leaving it in 
the sun to dry. His father likewise taught him to weave strong sacks 
of ixti cord on a simple loom. 

Some of his spare time, too, he devoted to that eternal Mexican 
pastime of hunting buried treasure. Of course he never found any, 
but the joy of the search was in itself and had he not heard countless 
tales of fabulous wealth found in caves where it had been hidden 
during a revolution? One could never tell! 

By this time Jose was old enough to wear the typical costume of 
the men of the tribe. For a few years he had run naked, but not for 



210 



American Indian Life 



long, and during the greater part of his boyhood had worn clothes of 
a nondescript character. But about the time of puberty, his mother 
made him a suit of white cotton cloth consisting of blouse and 
trousers. These were so much more comfortable than the tight 
trousers affected by the civilized Mexicans. Nevertheless, the laws 
of the nearby towns prohibited any one's appearing in the streets 
in the flowing calzones, so in each Indian village was at least one 
pair of pantalones which were borrowed whenever any one wished to 
visit town. The trousers were upheld by a girdle of faja or wool, 
woven by his mother on a narrow loom with geometric designs in 
black and white. A little bag, woven of the same material, known 
as a costal, accompanied him wherever he went, for in this he car- 
ried all his little personal possessions and necessities, such as matches, 
tobacco and, at times, lunch, as well as the dozens of little knick- 
knacks dear to the heart of the boy. In the same way his forefathers 
carried their sticks to make fire, and his grandfathers their flint and 
steel. But in these enlightened days sulphur or wax matches were 
within the reach of even impecunious Mexican Indians, and Jose 
very early learned to smoke cigarettes made of locally grown tobacco 
rolled in corn husks. As likely as not he carried the "makin's" on 
the broad brim of his sombrero, an immense peaked hat of the 
braided leaf of the agave. Sandals of rawhide completed his cos- 
tume. The hat was extremely heavy, but it was the custom, so 
Jose wore it with pride. But his greatest pride was his machete, 
that great steel knife carried by every man, which served every imag- 
inable purpose. No boy was ever half so proud of his first watch as 
was little Jose of his first machete. 

Jose helped his father in the labor of the field. In the winter they 
made a clearing by cutting and burning down the trees and brush. 
This was not a great task, for the rocky and infertile hillsides 
produced few trees or bushes and the cacti and grass were easily 
destroyed. Then, after the first heavy rain of the summer, they went 
to their field, carrying the seed corn, beads and a jicara full of water 
in which corn meal had been mixed. They had already undergone 
a fast of five days and an ablutionary bath. It was indeed a very 
sacred and solemn occasion, for the success of the yield, if not the 
entire harvest, depended upon them. For was not Corn the daughter 
of Father Sun? So they reverently placed the beads in the center 



The Chief Singer of the Tepecano 



211 



and four corners of the field, and sprinkled the pinole water to the 
cardinal points of the compass while Francisco, reverently facing the 
east, recited the ancient prayer, promising Father Sun that they 
would guard well his daughter and cherish her. Then they made 
little holes in the ground with sticks, dropped in the kernels and cov- 
ered them over. But little attention was required until harvest time. 
Then the corn was gathered with great joy, but the twin stalks, the 
corn plants with forked stem and two ears known as the milpa cuata, 
were left standing until the end. Then father and son solemnly 
walked around the field as many times as there were stalks within it, 
and recited another prayer, begging permission of Father Sun to 
carry home his daughter and promising again to guard her well. 
These stalks, with the ears attached, were then gathered in a sheaf 
and fastened to the ridgepole of the house, or to a tree. And that 
evening Nestor told again the old story of how Father Sun sent his 
daughter Corn to earth to be of service to man and how she was 
wronged by her husband, Toloache, 1 who used her bounty to support 
his mistresses, Crow and Badger, so that at last she returned to her 
father. 

'Therefore it is," said old Nestor, "that we must pray hard for 
only a little corn in place of the plenty which would have been ours. 
But Toloache was punished by being fastened head downwards to 
the rock and being required to grant us whatever we may ask of 
him." 

At this story Jose smiled for he was of the sophisticated younger 
generation, and he looked upon it as a pretty fable, but old Nestor 
evidently believed it implicitly. 

Practically all the efforts of the people were individual or family 
affairs. It was only on religious or ceremonial occasions that any 
communal interests were attempted . But one day at the height of 
the dry season his father said to Jose: 

"Pepecito, to-morrow we are all going to fish in the river and you 
are old enough to go along." 

The following day found them trudging toward the little river, 
their costales filled with gordas — tortillas made thicker than usual 
so that they retained their softness during the day. As they neared 
the river they were joined by other parties bound in the same direc- 

1 Jamestown weed. 



212 



American Indian Life 



tion. All paths led to a deep hole in the river above a series of 
rapids where, it was suspected, the fish had all congregated. Here 
all hands set to work making a tapexte, a weir or mesh of reeds laid 
together closely in a plane and tied with cord. One of the long 
edges was weighted with stones so that it sank to the bottom, and thus 
the entire mat could be dragged up or down the stream, carrying the 
fish with it. An entire day was consumed in making the tapexte and 
at nightfall all returned to their homes, worn out with exertion. 
The next day — ah! That was a wonderful day! Sounds of shout- 
ing and splashing filled the air. Dark skins glistened and sparkled 
in the sun as the fishermen plunged into the deep holes and endeav- 
ored to seize in little hand-nets the fish which had been cornered by 
the great tapexte. And that night fish boiled merrily in the pots of 
many happy households. 

Jose was of good physical type, of medium height and slim build. 
His hands and feet were small and well shaped, his features large but 
not coarse. His eye was dark and sparkling, his hair thick, straight, 
long and very black, his mustache, beard and body hair sparse. 
His forefathers used to pluck out their beards, considering that it 
made them look like the animal world, but he, like the younger 
generation, cut and shaved his as fashion dictated. His color was 
a dark brown. He was active, keen and bright when necessary, but 
inclined to slothfulness. After all, why should he do to-day any- 
thing he could put off till to-morrow? An unpleasant task, if 
procrastinated, might settle itself; if a pleasant prospect, why not 
prolong the enjoyable anticipation? When life contains so little 
variety, why do everything to-day and have nothing to do to-morrow? 

Jose liked to smoke, of course, but any luxury was too expensive 
for him to overdo it. And naturally he drank whenever he could 
get the various distillates of agave which sold in the neighboring 
villages as mescal, tequila and sotol. He drank to excess, for strong 
liquor gave him a surcease from monotony — it made him a different 
person in a different environment and he was glad to seek the change. 
Of course drunken brawls were frequent and machete wounds occa- 
sional, but they were forgiven shortly afterwards and forgotten. 

Like all of his people, Jose was naturally cheerful and from a cer- 
tain point of view, honest. He would probably have considered it 
highly commendable to steal anything from a Mexican or a Gringo 



The Chief Singer of the Tepecano 



213 



stranger if he could escape undetected, but he couldn't steal from 
friends. He was given to boasting — when the boast could not be 
checked up. Always cheerful, singing and happy, few things wor- 
ried him. Although very emotional, like all Indians he considered 
it weak to betray emotion before others. His one outstanding qual- 
ity was his politeness, and this was of the heart, not a mere outward 
display; he was always ready to be of assistance to the helpless, 
sympathetic to the unfortunate. He could hardly be called literate 
though he could, after intense and laborious cerebration, manage to 
spell out a message or write a note. What with this illiteracy, his 
tendency to procrastination, ignorance of all trades and indisposition 
to continued labor, he would have been a miserable failure in an 
industrial civilization, although in his native environment he was a 
valuable member of society. 

One year during the dry season, after the harvest of corn was in, 
Jose accompanied several other young men of the tribe to a nearby 
mining town where labor was in demand, and here he experienced 
his first contact with "high" civilization. Here with pick and shovel 
he could earn half a peso a day — twenty-five cents. Even at that 
rate Jose could save enough to return to the little village in compar- 
ative affluence after a few months, for money of any kind was seldom 
seen there, practically all business being done by barter and one was 
indeed deeply in debt who owed his neighbor a peso! Jose's native 
boss was easy-going and the men were not overworked, but the 
American foreman was a puzzle to Jose. Always on the go, he never 
sat down to rest. And such queer Spanish as he spoke — principally 
profanity! Then there were such wonderful and incomprehensible 
machines, there, which did the work of many men, run by steam and 
electricity: telephones, telegraphs, automobiles and countless other 
appliances. 

But the most joyous days of Jose's youth were those of the fiestas. 
Then the natives for miles around, both Indians and "neighbors," 
gathered in the little pueblo. Ave Maria! What an assemblage! 
All the pretty girls with their best petticoats of bright red flannel, 
their rebozos 1 covering their sleek, black hair, their bright black eyes 
sparkling with excitement and their white teeth shining. All the 
men with their white trousers and blouses freshly washed, their hats 

1 Shawls. 



214 



American Indian Life 



freshened up and their machetes polished. All roads led to the little 
village, most coming on foot, the more opulent on donkeys, mules or 
horses, for none owned wagons, nor could any wagon traverse the 
rocky trails. Open hospitality reigned everywhere. Relations who 
had not seen each other for months, compadres by the scores, old 
friends, new acquaintances, fell on each other's necks and slapped 
each other on the back while the bottle of fiery sotol or tequila cir- 
culated freely. 

Frequently the fiesta began with some communal work on the 
church, for the church was the center of all activity. Possibly a 
wall had to be erected and each one helped as he or she was able, the 
boys and women carrying single small stones, the men carrying 
frames on which many large stones were piled. An hour or so of 
combined labor and the wall was built. In the afternoon, sports 
were the order of the day. Of these the most popular was that of 
colando al toro, in which the wealthy young men endeavored, each 
on his pet horse, to ride past a bull, seize him by the tail and over- 
throw him. How Jose longed to be able to own a horse and gain the 
plaudits of the girls by his prowess! 

"I might even," thought he, "go to the great City of Mexico and 
learn to be a famous torero and be the idol of the entire Republic." 

At night there were cuetes exploded in honor of the day, which 
delighted Jose hugely, and dances to the music of the violin. All 
day and much of the night the celebration kept up. Little booths 
and tables were erected wherever vendors sold dainties, and the air 
was filled with the cries of the merchants. 

"Sweet oranges! Four for a half-real!" 1 

"Melon seeds! Perfectly toasted !" 

"Peanuts! Peanuts!" 

"Sugarcane! The very sweetest!" 

"Candies! Who wants them?" 

Lucky was the boy who had a real to spend at the fiesta, for a 
goodly portion of anything would be sold at the standard price of a 
centavo. 

Meanwhile, over in one corner, the men gathered around a 
Mexican from a nearby town who was running a gambling game 
with the cards, while his partner dispensed bottles of the agave 

1 Twelve cents. 



The Chief Singer of the Tepecano 



215 



brandy. Soon the inevitable vicious altercation would arise. To be 
sure it was limited to a violent flood of profanity and only reputation 
and dignity were injured, but the women shrank away while drunken 
cries filled the air. A few cool heads interfered before any irrepa- 
rable damage was done, but it was not always thus, as a rude cross or 
two in the neighborhood of the pueblo, marking a place where a soul 
had come to a violent end, mutely attest. 

It was the Christmas season that was particularly celebrated at 
Azqueltan, for then the old pageant of "Los Pastores" was performed. 
For weeks before, the performers, all prominent men of the village, 
were engaged in making their costumes of long, white dresses and 
their staffs decorated with colored tinsel and tissue paper. The 
words and music had been handed down from the days of the first 
Spanish missionaries, and depicted the adventures of a group of shep- 
herds journeying to the nativity. Jose's father, Francisco, played the 
part of the hermit with a crude mask of wood and an immense rosary 
of wooden beads. It was Jose's ambition to take the part of Satan, 
who attempted to prevent the pilgrimage. 

"Jose," said Francisco one day, "it is high time you were married. 
You are eighteen now and most of the boys of your age are married 
already. I cannot afford to support you any longer and you must 
set up for yourself. I've been hearing a great deal about your affairs 
with several girls — yes, and with some of our married women too! 
And it will have to cease." 

Here Don Pancho chuckled to himself, for he had a great deal of 
pride in his handsome son and enjoyed the gossip of his amours. 
Jose had learned to be a fair performer on the fiddle and the guitar, 
and would sit by night with a few other free lances of his own age 
under the eaves of some straw hut watching the stars come out in 
the beautiful crisp, evening air and singing melancholy love songs. 
Mlost of the girls succumbed to his advances at once, but there was 
one who rejected them with affected scorn and she, of course, was the 
one he most desired. Consequently he began to hedge at his father's 
suggestion. 

"But, little father," said he, "I don't want to get married yet, — 
possibly I never will!" 

"What nonsense!" exploded Francisco. "It's all right for Grin- 
gos to be bachelors; they can hire women to do their work; they 



2X6 



American Indian Life 



can eat in tiendas. But you! Who'll make your tortillas? Who'll 
make your clothes? Don't be a fool !" 

Jose knew it was up to him to get a wife, but he wished a little 
more time to press his suit with Josefa, the much-to-be-desired 
daughter of Candido Gonzales. "Give me another month, little 
father," he asked, and Francisco agreed. 

So Jose sought out his grandfather, old Nestor. Bashfully he 
hesitated and "stalled" until at last the sly old man suspected the 
truth. 

"Come, come!" he ejaculated. "Speak out! What is it, a girl?" 
Jose presented his case. The old man swelled up with pride. 

"Ah! Of a truth you have come to the right man! You knew 
your old grandfather was the one to aid you! There is now only 
one other man in the tribe who knows how to gain the love of a girl! 
A week from to-night at midnight will be the time. We must both 
fast for five days before, in order to appease the Gods and Maria 
Santisima. Get me a piece of the girl's clothing and I'll find the 
other things." 

Jose didn't relish the idea of a fast, for he was of the younger 
generation and took little stock in the superstitions, as he considered 
them, of the elders. Nevertheless he was now in trouble and, with 
the natural faith of the helpless man, willing to try anything. So 
he endured the fast without a whimper and surreptitiously visited 
the girl's house while she was fetching water from the spring and 
stole a small article of clothing. 

When at last the night came, the old man was in a queer mood 
of neurotic enthusiasm and excitement, combined with sober dignity 
in contemplation of his important office. 

"Have you the clothing?" he asked eagerly. Jose handed it to 
him. 

"And now a piece of your own clothing!" A short search brought 
to light a discarded bit which would serve the purpose. 

Carefully the old man made a doll of the clothes of each, one to 
represent the boy, the other the girl. Then he produced flowers 
of five narcotic plants which he had spent the day in seeking— 
giiizache, palo mulato, garambullo, rosa maria and toloache— and 
with these he decorated the boy doll. When the stars indicated the 
hour of midnight, a candle was lighted and the figures were placed 



The Chief Singer of the Tepecano 



217 



in a large bowl of water, floating. Jose watched with bated breath. 
Not that he put much faith in the outcome, but the spell of the 
magic, the stillness of the night and the temper of the old man, who 
by this time had practically reached a state of self-hypnosis, had a 
profound effect. Reverently, and in a low, tense voice the old man 
recited the ancient prayer begging of the Intoxicated Woman and 
the Flower Man, that the desired one should be brought to her lover. 
After this he produced his musical bow and, placing a bowl upside 
down on the ground, held the bow on it with his foot. Striking 
the string with two small sticks so that it gave a sonorous twang, he 
began to sing the old song appropriate for the occasion. Five times 
he sang it, and then jumped up and walked around the bowl with 
the floating figures, five times. The charm was then complete. 
Eagerly he looked into the bowl and found that the two figures had 
floated together. With a delighted air he turned to Jose, restraining 
his high-pitched emotion. 

"It is well," he said simply. "The Gods and Maria Santisima 
have answered your prayer." Jose felt relieved, for, although at 
heart he doubted the efficacy of the charm, the old man's emotion 
had a considerable effect upon him. So it was with greater self- 
confidence that in the morning he renewed both his meals and his 
assaults on the heart of the delectable Josefa, until he felt that he 
might confidently put the matter to the test. 

"Father," said he the following day, "will you speak to Candido 
Gonzales about Josefa for me?" His father chuckled. 

"So that's the way the wind blows! I guess we can settle the 
matter. It would be silly of Don Candido to refuse such a promis- 
ing son-in-law!" 

There were many things to be arranged and the matter of the 
marriage of one's children was too important an affair to be lightly 
settled, so old Francisco and Candido had many long conferences. 
They debated the matter from every possible point of view and 
then all over again from the beginning. But even matters of greater 
pith and moment must eventually be squeezed dry, and at last the 
time arrived when neither the fertile Don Pancho nor the equally 
fertile Don Candido could conceive of another topic of discussion, 
so they considered the matter formally arranged. The young people 
would await the next visit of the cura and then be married. 



218 



American Indian Life 



But right there old Nestor interposed a furious objection. Here 
he was, the Cantador Mayor, the Chief Singer or high priest of the 
old religion, the keeper of the old customs, doing his best to pre- 
serve the tribe from dissolution and destruction because of the anger 
of the old Gods. The young generation were deserting the Gods 
and the practices of their forefathers. They no longer attended the 
old ceremonies, prayed and sacrificed to the Gods, fasted or made 
prayer sticks. Even the old language had nearly perished and the 
Gods were so angry that they were permitting the -tribe to grow 
smaller and smaller, yearly. It was only the fervor of a few de- 
voted conservatives like himself which still induced the Gods to 
send their rains in the spring. And would he allow his only grand- 
son to be married without the practice of the old rites? Por Dios, 
no! And besides, he was one of the very few men who still remem- 
bered the old prayer and it was the custom to pay a peso per night 
to the one who recited the prayer. He had not the slightest objec- 
tion to Pepe's being married by the cura— the more Gods the better 
^but he insisted on his privileges and the observance of the old 
customs. 

So, to please the old man and to keep peace, it was agreed to follow 
the old customs, and the next Wednesday night the three men, Nes- 
tor, Francisco and Jose, journeyed to the girl's house. Along the 
narrow, steep and rocky trail they stumbled, finally arriving at the 
house where they were cordially admitted by old Candido. Seating 
themselves by the door, Nestor immediately launched into the prayer 
which was a long one and recited with great gravity. He spoke 
in beautiful allegory of the creation of the girl in the heavens, and 
of her long wanderings before her birth. At last the long prayer 
came to an end and the party trooped home again. 

For five nights on successive Wednesdays and Saturdays, this was 
repeated and on the last night Candido, who had been ably coached 
by Nestor, arose at the end of the old man's speech and spoke in 
reply, gravely, the traditional response which had served Tepecano 
brides and grooms for centuries. He admitted that his daughter 
was lazy and worthless, but appreciated the honor of having her 
hand asked, and closed with an appeal to the Gods for forgiveness 
from sins and for health. Then he brought out a white cloth and 
on it were piled all the girl's possessions and her wedding gifts. 



The Chief Singer of the Tepecano 



219 



Then all four, the bride and groom and their fathers, seized each a 
corner, raised the cloth, and the ceremony was complete. Jose re- 
mained with his wife's people for several months while he built him- 
self a new house and put his household in order before taking his 
bride to her new home. When the good cura came to say mass the 
next time, the couple appeared before him and were united according 
to the rites of Holy Church. 

One day a melancholy figure appeared before the little hut of 
Nestor and the old man hobbled out to greet his visitor. 

"Enter, enter, little grandson!" he greeted. "Why so sad? What 
has happened?" 

"It is my wife, little grandfather," replied Jose. "She is quite 
ill. We have done everything we can for her. All the neighbors 
have come, and each one has brought her some delicacy and forced 
her to eat it, but to no avail. Can you not help her?" 

The old man puffed up with a mixture of self-conceit, anger and 
contempt. 

"Ah, what could you expect from these old women? They expect 
to cure sickness by foods and drugs when it is necessary to appease 
or overcome something! Verily you have come to the right man! 
Let us see what we can do." He disappeared within his house, made 
a judicious selection of objects, put them within his sack, and over 
the trail they went toward the house. 

Sure enough, there lay poor Josefa on a mat on the floor of the 
house. The civilized physician would have diagnosed her malady 
as malaria and suggested doses of quinine and crude oil — the latter 
to be administered to the mosquitoes in the pools of stagnant water. 
A few sympathetic neighbors were gathered around, begging her to 
try one or another of the dainties they had so carefully prepared. 

"Truly, I have done my best, grandfather," lamented Jose. "I 
have sucked at the seat of pain as you have told me, but extracted 
nothing, and I have blown tobacco smoke on her and prayed, but 
without avail." 

"Yes, my son, but one must have practice in such matters and the 
confidence of the Gods. Possibly it is the work of one of your 
enemies. It is well that you called me, for none else in the tribe 
has my power and influence." 

Sending the neighbors home, he questioned Jose with regard to 



220 



American Indian Life 



his sins of omission and commission, trying to determine the cause of 
his wife's infirmity. Had he or she any enemies who might wish 
to send sickness upon them? Jose knew of none, except possibly 
one of her other old suitors. Had he been careful to placate the 
chanes when he built his new home? Jose was compelled to admit 
that he had ignored this matter entirely. 

"Ah, my son!" lamented the old man, "you young people laugh 
at us; you think we are silly, and yet when your own obstinacy leads 
you into trouble you come to us for aid! Well, that is ever the way 
of youth. Now let's see what we can do." 

He laid Josefa on her back, standing at her feet. Lighting a 
cigarette made of corn husk and tobacco he assumed a serious atti- 
tude which rapidly became almost hypnotic. Taking long draughts 
of smoke, he faced the four cardinal points in turn, blowing a puff 
of smoke in each direction, and then in a low tense voice recited a 
prayer, begging that the illness might pass from her and she be re- 
stored to health. Then he blew five puffs of smoke on her hands, 
feet and forehead and, falling on his knees, began to stroke her body 
rapidly from the extremities to the seat of pain, at which place he 
then began to suck vigorously. Finally arising, he spat into his 
hand a mouthful of blood. His state of tense emotion rapidly dis- 
appeared as he said gravely: 

"This is a serious matter, Pepito. It is not the chan; if it were, 
I should have sucked out only spittle. The blood proves it to be 
witchcraft! 

"It is a matter of the greatest delicacy," continued Nestor, "and 
you are lucky to have one so powerful as I at your service. Even 
for me it will require a whole week of fasting and praying to diag- 
nose the matter correctly. And even for my favorite grandson I 
couldn't afford to do it for less than the standard price of five pesos!" 

After a half-hour's argument the matter was amicably arranged 
and for a week the old man bathed, fasted and prayed, and by the 
end of that time had worked himself into an exalted state which 
combined with the weakness induced by the fast, made him see 
visions. On the evening of the seventh day he again appeared be- 
fore the young man, the gravity of the business evidently weighing 
upon him very heavily. 

"I have seen it all," he said simply. "It was a young man. I 



The Chief Singer of the Tepecano 



221 



couldn't see him plainly enough to recognize him. But he made 
a figure from a piece of her clothing and stuck a pin into it while 
another old man prayed that she might sicken and die!" 

A wave of hatred passed over Jose and he cursed the culprit 
violently. There was no longer the slightest doubt in his mind 
that old Nestor spoke with authority. He had heard all these old 
tales about ways of harming an enemy by magical means, but he had 
never really put any faith in them. And now he was the victim! 
He ran over in his mind the names of those who might be suspected. 
There was Pablo Hernandez with whom he had had an argument 
at the last fiesta, and Pedro Martinez who claimed he had cheated 
him over a sale of corn last month. Ah, but wait. There was Mar- 
garita de la Rosa who had been his pet rival for the hand of Josefa. 
The more he thought of it, the more certain he was that it must have 
been he. All right! He would fix him! 

Nestor set about his cure with gravity and self-possession, knowing 
like any doctor that the best half of any cure lay in the confidence of 
the patient. First he produced his bundle of arrows made of a 
straight shaft of wood with a large feather from an eagle or a red- 
tailed hawk, hanging from the blunt end. These were the arrows 
that attacked evil and sickness. Three of these he stuck in the 
ground at the patient's head and a fourth at her feet. Then he per- 
formed a number of motions with the arrows, which involved chang- 
ing their positions, pointing them to the four cardinal points and 
waving them above the patient's head to purify her. Finally he fell 
on his knees and once again began to suck at the sorest spot in her 
body. After several attempts on various parts he finally arose with 
great emotion, his face a livid red from the intensity of his efforts, 
spat into his hand and showed Jose — a pin! The latter gasped with 
astonishment. 

Now without doubt the old man had concealed the pin in his 
mouth before beginning to suck, nevertheless he had worked himself 
into such an intense emotional state that the fraud was probably 
quite unconscious. As for Jose — had he not seen with his own eyes? 
The very pin which had been stuck into the figure representing his 
wife had been removed from her body! So that was the game, was 
it? Very well, it was a game more than one could play at. From 
that time on he nursed his revenge. 



222 



American Indian Life 



After he had brooded over his wrongs for a long time he again 
consulted Nestor and told him of his suspicions. The old man 
nodded gravely. 

"Most probably it was he,' 1 he assented. "Now that I think of it, 
the person I saw in the vision was much like him. Of course! I 
see him very plainly now. And the old man who helped him was 
that shameless old Heleno Montez who thinks he has more power 
than I. I'm certain of that. Very well, we'll show them!" And 
so the two conspirators secretly planned the untimely demise of Mar- 
garita and Heleno. 

Thus it happened that a few days later they met late one night 
in a secluded spot on the outskirts of the village. 

"There are several methods of bewitching," began Nestor, after 
crossing himself. "You might as well learn them. One way is to 
make a figure of cotton and bury it in the cemetery, light a candle 
and place it at the head of a grave at midnight on Monday, after 
having fasted all day. Repeat this for five successive Mondays and 
on the last day get a black stone from the river and hit the earth 
above the figure five times. Then run home before the candle goes 
out. The corpse will cause your enemy to sicken and die within 
five months. But one must fast for the entire twenty-nine days." 

Jose shuddered and looked furtively around into the darkness with 
the fear of one who dreads ghosts. Neither the method nor the 
long fast appealed to him. But Nestor, with the air of a devotee, 
warmed up to his subject. 

"But a better way is to make a figure of cotton with hands and feet, 
head and mouth, wrap it up with the shroud of a dead man and then 
pierce the head and the heart with five thorns. Pretty soon the 
victim will fall sick of the stomach and his heart will rot and — may 
God have mercy on his soul!" Nestor chuckled. "A very pretty 
way it is, too! That was probably the method they tried on Josef a. 
Lucky you had me to counteract it!" 

Again Jose's anger rose at the thought of the villainy and he 
hardened his heart against the malefactors. 

"Another good way," continued Nestor, "is to make a clay figure 
and bury it in an ant hill at high noon. You must fast a day and 
say the creed seven times while counting your rosary and light a 



The Chief Singer of the Tepecano 223 

candle. And when the candle goes out, the ants will come up and 
in five days the enemy will die of boils and hives and fever!" 

"That's a terrible death, little grandfather," said Jose. "We 
can't do anything like that!" 

"Well, there's still another way, the best of all. Few men know 
this, but I will tell you the secret." His voice sank to a whisper. 

"First you must get a bone from the right hand of a dead man. 
Take this and hide it in the thatch of the roof of your enemy's house 
when no one is looking. Then in the night he will see a black phan- 
tom and the following night a terrifying vision lamenting behind the 
house. Unless he finds and removes the charm, he will continue 
being terrified until at last all the people of that house will die from 
fear of horrible nightmares of poisonous animals— rattle-snakes, cen- 
tipedes, tarantulas, lizards, spiders and scorpions!" 

But Jose had heard enough, and was on his way home as if all these 
noxious creatures were after him. Others might dabble in witch- 
craft if they pleased, but it was not for him! His difference with 
Margarito he would settle with fist or machete! 

This experience brought Jose more closely into contact with old 
Nestor. Besides he was getting on toward middle life and begin- 
ning to recover from the agnosticism of youth and to take an interest 
in the old religion and customs of the forefathers. These, he was 
well aware, were kept alive by a few devoted old conservatives like 
Nestor who believed that it was only their fidelity which kept the 
tribe from complete annihilation by the Gods, angry because of the 
neglect of the younger people. The younger people regarded the 
conservatives as harmless old fools and their religious practices as 
amusing superstitions. In this they were encouraged by the padre 
who was anxious to see all the old beliefs rooted out. Nevertheless 
he knew enough of human nature to realize that little could be ac- 
complished by coercion and force, and enough of church history 
to remember that the Church had always found it better to re- 
interpret the old pagan beliefs and incorporate them into the faith 
rather than to battle against them. Consequently the conservative 
group considered themselves perfectly good Catholics and saw no 
antagonism between the new and the old religions. Nestor found 
Jose in a receptive mood when he approached him on the topic. 



224 American Indian Life 

"Jose," said he, "it has always been a matter of great regret to 
me that my only grandson has not been one of the few who have kept 
faith with the ancient Gods of the pueblo. But that is the nature 
of youth. I too, up to your age, took little part in the ceremonies, 
although at that time all of the elder generation were loyal. But 
now you have arrived at the age of discretion ; your advice is sought 
and your example has considerable influence. I know you no longer, 
laugh at our beliefs ; you have frequently questioned me about them. 
But you have never affiliated yourself with us. Delay no longer, 
dear little grandson. Father Sun is stretching out his hand toward 
you to gather you unto him. This is the fifth of January. To- 
night we celebrate the feast of the Pinole. Come and join us!" 

There was an air of ecstasy about the old man and of hysterical 
emotion, due, as Jose realized, to the long fast in preparation for the 
feast, as well as to the narcotic peyote. Jose saw that a refusal would 
anger the old man and, besides, he felt a curiosity as well as a real 
religious interest in the proceedings. 

"I will go," he said shortly. 

As the sun sank behind the western mountains Jose and Nestor 
followed the winding trail toward the place where the ceremony 
was to be held. Just at dusk they arrived at the patio situated on 
the top of a small hill. Of course in his boyhood days Jose had fre- 
quently visited the patios where the ceremonies of the conservatives 
for untold generations had been held. He knew their general form 
well— a flat circular ground with a place for a fire in the center, 
a ring of stones which served as seats for the communicants, a circu- 
lar path without this for the dancers, and a rude altar built of stones 
to the east. But now everything assumed a new significance. 

On arriving, Nestor and Jose gravely made the requisite five cere- 
monial circuits of the ground, after which they bowed before the 
altar, while old Nestor recited a prayer in a low voice. Jose knew 
enough of the old Tepecano language to get the sense of the prayer 
which begged permission of the Gods to prepare and decorate their 
temple. After this, they set to work and cleared the ground of all 
growth until it presented an even surface, swept it smooth and started 
a fire in the center. , 
Nestor then busied himself at the altar for a long time, and Jose 
observed that he had opened his box and taken out many objects of 



The Chief Singer of the Tepecano 225 

ceremonial importance which he placed in their proper positions 
on the altar. For a long time he busied himself there, carefully un- 
wrapping every object and giving great care to its placing. Jose, 
sweeping the court and nursing the fire, watched him out of the cor- 
ner of his eye. At last the old man turned and called to him. 

"Josehto," said the old man, surveying his work with the pride 
of a good craftsman, "it is well that you should understand the mean- 
ing of all our religious objects. Doubtless you have heard malicious 
gossip and lies concerning them from the unbelievers of the village. 
They have told you that we worship idols here, and are in league 
with the Devil in opposition to our Holy Catholic Faith. Lies! 
All lies! We worship God here just as we do in the church with 
songs and prayers. Our dear cura is the leader of that branch of 
the church, and I of this. He needs his chalices and his sacraments 
just as I need the ceremonial objects you see here. Just as the blessed 
images in the church protect the town from evil, so do these bring 
us health, relief from sickness, and rain for our crops. Look here! 
This white cloth is the tapexte— it represents the heavens filled with 
great white rain clouds. These little square objects of colored yarn 
on a frame, you know well. They are chimales, shields, and repre- 
sent the face of God, the Sun. Consequently they shield us from 
every influence and we even fear to make them until after the rainy 
season for fear they might keep away the rains! These arrows you 
know too. They are our active defense from sickness and evil and 
are hung with the feathers of the royal eagle and the red-tailed 
hawk." 

"Why only those?" interrupted Jose. 

"Because they are the most powerful, swift and strong; therefore 
the arrow will fly fast, hard and straight. It is with these arrows 
that people are cleansed from sickness and evil. Then these sticks 
with tufts of cotton wound on them are bastoncitos. The cotton, of 
course, represents the great rain clouds, and these also serve' to 
cleanse and purify and to bring the rains for the crops. All of 
these things you have seen and know fairly well. But these little 
objects of great importance you probably do not know." 
^ Nestor pointed to the front of the altar where lay six or eight 
jicaras. Some of these were decorated with designs made of small 
glass beads of different colors set in beeswax on the outer and inner 



226 American Indian Life 

surfaces, but all of them contained various small objects resting on 
beds of cotton. IVTany of them were natural stones of strange and 
unusual shapes and colors, others were little bone carvings and similar 
objects made by the ancient populations of this region, and occasion- 
ally found by the present people. A few others were, although 
neither of the observers realized it, manufactured objects from other 
lands. 

"These," said old Nestor solemnly, "are the cidukam which are 
sometimes called our 'idols.' Of course they are not. But they are 
very powerful and rare and are carefully guarded. One finds them 
here and there, where they are left by the Gods that those with faith 
and observation may find them. They protect him from evil and 
sickness and bring to him health, wealth and happiness. I, as Chief 
Singer, have the largest number of most powerful ones which pro- 
tect not only me, but the entire pueblo. And yet they care so little 
for it that the people laugh at my valuables and refuse to attend our 
ceremonies. But let them beware! The Gods will not bear with 
this neglect forever! Already things are not as they were in my 
youth. Then the rains were longer and heavier, the corn grew more 
bountifully and the deer were more plentiful. While I last, I will 
keep the faith, but who will follow me? Not one of the younger 
generation knows the prayers, the songs or the details of the cere- 
monies! Well, at any rate, I shall have done my best to save them 
from the consequences of their neglect." 

"Here," he exclaimed, pointing to a spherical object resting on 
a bed of' cotton in a beautifully decorated jicara, "here is the most 
powerful object in the collection. There is not another one in the 
tri be— yes, there cannot be another like this in the whole world." 

He raised the globe reverently and lovingly from its bed. Now 
an American schoolboy would have recognized it as a large glass 
marble with the white corkscrew veins in the center. But to Nestor 
and Jose it was a wonderful object, and they feasted their eyes on 
the beautiful and regular shape and color. 

"This is surely the spirit of the rain," said the old man softly. 
"See ! It is transparent like the water and in the centre the whirling 
rain descends. Ah! If that should be lost or taken from the coun- 
try, the rain would surely follow it and we would all die of drought 
and starvation !" He put it back into its place reverently. 



The Chief Singer of the Tepecano 227 



"Here is a representation of the moon, white and round; this one 
is evidently the spirit of the deer. See how closely it resembles one 
with its horns! Here is doubtless an ear of corn, and this one here 
is certainly intended for a chimal. And these — but here come more 
people!" 

Into the light of the fire brightly blazing in the center of the patio 
came three elderly men. Jose knew them weil, of course, as prom- 
inent in the conservative party. They walked five times around the 
circle and stopped before the altar and breathed their prayers before 
stepping out to greet the two. From this time on, the communicants 
arrived slowly, until by eight o'clock about a dozen had congregated, 
almost entirely elderly men. A few women also had come, but these 
made a fire for themselves outside the circle and took no part in the 
ritual. 

Presently Nestor brought out a bow of the type used by the hunters 
of old, and tightened the string until it gave forth a resonant twang 
when plucked. Then, scooping out a hole in the ground in front 
of his seat, he inverted a gourd bowl over this and held the bow, 
string uppermost, on the bowl with his foot so that it served as a 
resonance chamber. Two small sticks were selected and the cere- 
mony was about to begin. First, however, he called Jose to him and 
formally recited to him another of the old speeches, handed down 
by tradition through centuries, delivering to him the care of the fire 
for the night. Then he seated himself on his central seat, and on 
either side sat another old man. In each hand they held one of the 
ceremonial arrows which they had taken from the altar. These 
were waved slowly, and pointed in turn to east, north, west and south 
while the old man recited the traditional prayer opening the fiesta. 
This done, he settled himself on his seat and, taking the two sticks in 
his hand, struck the bow with a sonorous twang. Then he began 
to sing in a low voice to the accompaniment of the monotonous twang 
of the bow. Jose followed the example of the other men by getting 
up and dancing around the circle with a solemn, slow tripping step, 
stopping to face outwards for a moment at each of the cardinal points, 
and particularly to the altar at the east. 

And so the long night passed. Around Polaris swung the bright 
stars, shining as they can only in the crisp air of high altitudes. All 
night long with but brief intermissions the old man sang. Only four 



228 



American Indian Life 



songs there were in all, but these were very long and full of monoto- 
nous repetition. They told of the origin of the Gods and of the 
world, and of the coming of the rain to refresh the world with its 
life-giving water. Jose tended the fire conscientiously and danced 
with the other men for at least a portion of every song. 

At last above the rim of the eastern hills appeared the glowing 
Morning Star like a heavenly torch, and all greeted it reverently. 
Soon the great sun himself began to spread the light and warmth of 
his glow abroad, and finally showed his face radiant above the eastern 
hills. Seldom had he seemed more majestic to Jose and seldom had 
his warmth been more welcome, after the chilliness of the night. 

About this time Nestor finished his last song to the Sun and the 
ceremony was almost over. Once again the other two old men took 
their places beside him on the stone seats and once again were the 
arrows pointed to the cardinal points while the Chief Singer recited 
the prayer to close the ceremony. Then, one by one, all the men 
approached the altar where they were given little tamales 1 to eat, 
while Nestor purified them of all sickness and evil by waving over 
them an arrow, the feather of which had been dipped in peyote 
water. A few drops of the water were placed in the hand of each, 
and then water in which corn meal had been mixed was sprinkled 
over every one present, over the altar and the seats. The sacred 
objects on the altar were collected and replaced in their box, all the 
attendants, led by Nestor, made their five ceremonial circuits of the 
patio and the ceremony was completed. Jose went home and slept 
the rest of the day. 

Although Jose still affected to ridicule the beliefs and practices 
of the conservatives, yet the ceremony he had witnessed had really 
quite an effect upon him. And he began to show a live concern 
for the old religion, studying it almost as would a scientific investi- 
gator. Many were the conferences and long talks that he and Nes- 
tor held together, the old man an intensely enthusiastic informant, 
the young man an interested listener and keen inquisitor. Of course, 
like all the Tepecanos, he already understood the basis of the old 
religion, how the trinity of Father Sun, Mother Moon and Elder 
Brother Morning Star watched over and protected their people; 
how Father Sun had sent his daughter, the Corn, into the world that 

1 Cooked corn meal wrapped in corn husk. 



The Chief Singer of the Tepecano 229 



they might have sustenance, and how the Gods sent the welcome and 
necessary rains in the spring and summer, that the corn might 
flourish, requiring only that the people worship them with song and 
dance, with arrows and chimales. But all of the minor esoteric de- 
tails opened a new field of interest to him. He learned the many 
set prayers which were enjoined for various occasions, the ritual 
songs sung at the four principal ceremonies, that of the Rain in April, 
the Ripe-corn in September, the Corn-meal in January and the 
Twin-corn in March. He heard of the tabus of fasting and con- 
tinence enjoined upon the Chief Singer and, above all, of the in- 
fluence and power of the magic peyote which played such a large 
part in all observances. He learned to make the various kinds of 
arrows and chimales and to know their special powers. He learned 
the locations of the altars, and particularly the four principal ones to 
the cardinal points, in each of which was a habitant spirit, and how to 
each pertained a special color — green to the east, gray to the north, 
black to the west and white to the south. He came to realize that the 
religion was practically based on the securing of rain, for which the 
Gods were petitioned with prayer and song, and placated by sac- 
rifices and fasting, for rain was the one essential to human life. 

Jose became particularly interested in the little cactus root known 
as peyote, that dried, shriveled-up little thing which produced such 
a wonderful effect when eaten. Such a feeling of ecstasy and exhila- 
ration, of joy and insensibility to fatigue, did they produce that they 
were certainly powerful instruments of the Gods, if not near gods 
themselves. 

"It is a kind of corn," volunteered Nestor of the peyote, "just as the 
deer are corn. 1 ' By that he meant that it was a food sent by the Gods, 
for he knew well that it was the root of a cactus growing in a country 
far to the east. 

"When I was young," he continued, "we journeyed far to the east 
to gather the peyote root just as the Huicholes do to-day. But now 
that I am old and there is no one to take my place, I must buy it 
from them." 

Then and there Jose swore that he would accompany the next 
Huichol party to the eastern country in search of the strange plant, 
for he was still young enough to feel youth's passion for visiting 
strange lands. He had frequently seen parties of peyote-seekers 



230 American Indian Life 

passing through the village and had struck up an acquaintance with 
some of them, envying them their gaudy costumes and long trip. 
Now he would go with them and himself bring back the peyote! 

"May the Gods be with you, Joselito!" fervently prayed old Nes- 
tor. "Would that I were young enough to accompany you! But 
I shall fast and pray for you. When you return with the peyote you 
will have fulfilled one of the requirements for the office of Chief 
Singer, and I will go to my forefathers in peace, knowing that you 
will take my place. It is now October and some of the Huichol 
men will be about starting out. You have frequently heard me 
mention my old friend Benito Torres who left Azqueltan as a youth 
to live with the Huicholes, and who has risen to be one of the most 
respected men of the tribe. Go to him and he will befriend you. 
Go with God!" 

It was a bright, warm day in October when Jose set out for the 
Huichol country. Josefa had filled his sack with gordas and his 
bule 1 with water. Tobacco, matches, his machete and blanket were 
the rest of his equipment. He waved farewell to his wife and started 
up the hills to the west. Higher and higher he climbed, now scram- 
bling up a slope of rock talus, now following a trickling stream up 
a ravine, now skirting a fertile hill with the hay still slightly greenish 
from the recent rains. The little river in the bottom of the great 
barranca grew smaller and smaller, until at last it was lost to sight 
entirely, behind the hills of the upper edge. The heat grew per- 
ceptibly less as he climbed and the pine trees appeared singly and 
then in groups. The first night he spent by the side of a blazing 
pine fire on the edge of the mountain forests, while he listened to the 
howl of the wolves or the snarl of a jaguar or mountain lion. 

Early in the morning he was off again, still going westward 
through the pine groves until at last he began to see the fields and 
houses of the Huichol. The houses were much like those of his tribe 
except that none was of adobe. They were also arranged in vil- 
lages, but in every village was one larger house which served as the 
temple, in place of the open-air altars to which he was accustomed. 
The people looked very much the same, but their dress was different. 
They wore scarfs, belts and little pouches woven in designs of bright 
colors, wide hats with feathers, and their legs were bare to the knees. 
They looked askance at the traveler in the conventional cotton trou- 

1 Gourd bottle. 



The Chief Singer of the Tepecano 



231 



sers of the Mexican peon. One or two accosted him in the Huichol 
language. It was a queer tongue to him, with many sounds he had 
never heard before and was confident no civilized man could ever 
reproduce. He replied in Spanish, but was not understood until 
one of the middle-aged men who had worked in the nearby mining 
town, and there acquired a small Spanish vocabulary, happened 
along. From him Jose learned that Benito Torres lived on a little 
ranch a few miles beyond the village. Arriving there about sunset 
he kicked aside the snarling dogs which, as everywhere in Mexico, 
prowled about the house, and called aloud. A middle-aged man 
came out of the house. 

"Cafhovan, armano!" Jose greeted him. The man, after a mo- 
ment of silent surprise, smiled and countered : 

"Cafhovan api! It is a long time since I have heard that greeting 
in Tepecano," he continued in Spanish, "and the language has 
about failed me. Enter! Enter! Here is your home! Julia! 
Bring food and drink for my brother Wakori !" Wakori is the name 
given the Tepecanos by the Huicholes. 

"I am called Jose Aguilar," said the traveler, "the son of Fran- 
cisco and grandson of Nestor." 

"Ah, yes! Francisco and I were boys together, and many pranks 
we played on Nestor. He himself was a young man then. How 
long ago that was! But when I was younger than you, I saw the 
way things were going. The Mexicans were encroaching on our 
lands, the cura came and built the church and we were made to give 
up our communal land and each man take a piece for himself. As 
if the Gods ever intended their land to be owned like a machete or 
a hat! As well divide up the air and the water in the river and 
make the new-born babe pay to breathe and drink! Ave Maria! 
And then they began to bring in strong drinks; they wanted us to 
put our legs in those long trousers you wear now, to give up our old 
language and speak Spanish and to foreswear the old religion. I 
saw the way it was going and said, 'Not for me! Not for Benito 
Torres!' And I took my blanket as you have done and came up here 
with the Huicholes where I have spent a long, happy life following 
the mandates of the Gods. You are wise to have done likewise. I 
welcome you!" And he threw his arms around the younger man in 
a welcoming embrace. 



232 



American Indian Life 



Jose was pleased and yet troubled. 

"Yes, little uncle," he replied at last, "it is quite true. There 
is little of the old left now in Azqueltan. Only old Nestor and a few 
of the other old men keep to the old faith. But I am of the new 
order. These are the clothes I have always worn; Spanish is my 
language, Catholicism my religion. I cannot change to the old order 
any more than you to the new. And yet the new is inevitable ; I see 
it even here." 

Benito nodded a sad acquiescence. "Yes, it is a losing fight. 
Even here the old is passing. I have not postponed it for these 
people, but only for myself by coming here. In a century or so 
there will be no Huicholes, no Tepecanos, no Coras, only Mexican 
peones of Indian blood. But why then have you come here?" 

Jose explained his mission, at which the sad face lighted up again. 

"It is well," he said. "I too went with parties several times after 
I first came here. But it is a task for young men. You know it in- 
volves harsh restrictions of fasting and great endurance?" Jose 
insisted he was prepared for them. 

"Very well, then. In a very few days a party begins the prelimi- 
nary fast. I will speak to their leader and you shall join them." 

And so it happened that through the good offices of Benito, Jose 
was accepted among the peyoteros and prepared to take his part in 
the work. He adopted the dress and paraphernalia of the party, 
taking bow and arrows and several small tobacco gourds. The 
evening before the departure he bathed and prayed, as he might not 
bathe again until the return from the long journey. There were 
nine other men in the party, including a leader who was the only one 
allowed to make fire while on the long trip. Several burrows were 
taken along, to carry tortillas on the journey and bring back the 
peyote on the return. Nevertheless they were expected to fast much 
of the time, and several men of the party ate little but peyote during 
the entire forty-three days they were away on the journey. 

Bidding an affectionate good-by to their wives and families, the 
little party started out. Instead of passing by Azqueltan, they struck 
eastward down the slopes of the wooded mountains and out onto the 
rolling plateau, dry, hot and sandy. Day followed day in monoto- 
nous repetition, night followed night. Generally in single file they 



The Chief Singer of the Tepecano 233 

walked, dirty and hungry, but with their minds fixed on the goal 
before them — the attainment of the little cacti which would protect 
their villages and bring them rain. Across the well known trail 
they went, camping each night in a certain place, so that the faithful 
watchers at home knew each night exactly where they were. This 
trail had been followed for centuries and went along the most in- 
accessible route, away from roads and villages, so that the pilgrims 
were seen by very few of the Mexicans of even the more inhabited 
parts of the country they traversed. 

But at one spot when the journey was about half ended, not far 
from the great City of Zacatecas, they came to a road which could 
not be avoided. It was made up of short logs of wood laid parallel, 
and on these were fastened long, snaky iron rails. Jose, though more 
civilized than the others, had never seen anything of the kind before, 
but one of the other men who had made the journey before, explained 
by signs that an immense monster, dragging behind him houses full 
of people, ran at tremendous speed along the road, as a horse drew 
a cart along a dirt road. From the description Jose recognized it 
as a railroad, as he had heard about railroads when an open-eyed 
boy, from an itinerant peddler. 

Eastward, ever eastward they pressed, until two full weeks had 
passed, when the leader of the party informed them that their des- 
tination was but five days' journey away and that from that time all 
restrictions must be rigidly observed. They were to walk in single 
file continuously, and eat nothing but peyote for the rest of the jour- 
ney. In a few days Jose began to see the first little peyote plants, 
but the leader affected not to notice them, although as the party 
pressed on the plants grew more abundant. At length, on the nine- 
teenth day, when they had covered about three hundred miles, the 
leader called a halt. Trembling with emotion, superinduced by 
hunger and fatigue, he cried: 

"There is the peyote, appearing as a deer!" 

At that, all drew their arrows and shot at a peyote plant, taking 
care not to hit it. Then from the loads on the burrows various 
ceremonial objects were produced — arrows, chimales, bastones and 
other objects not used by the Tepecanos — which were deposited as 
sacrifices to the Gods and to the peyote. For the next three days all 



234 American Indian Life 

collected the little cactus roots until the burros were loaded down 
and the men wore strings around their'necks. On the fifth day after 
arrival they started their long journey homeward. 

By this time the supply of tortillas had become entirely exhausted 
and Jose, in particular, being more accustomed to regularity of food, 
and less accustomed to the diet of peyote, suffered greatly. The 
others appeared not to be greatly affected, for they consumed many 
peyote roots and walked with the sprightly, springy step that cer- 
tain kinds of intoxication produce, though their thin limbs and drawn 
faces betrayed the strain upon them. Now and again inhabitants 
of the country gave them food, but these were rare occasions and for 
the greater part they covered the first fourteen days of the return trip 
in a daze, sustained only by the stimulus of peyote and their nerve. 

But at last the fourteen days were over and they approached the 
spot where, the leader informed them, a party from the village 
would meet them, five days' journey from home, with loads of tor- 
tillas. And so indeed it happened! How good the corn cakes, 
bone dry after five days in the scorching sun! With renewed 
strength they continued their way to the edge of their pine forests, 
where they hunted deer for several days to obtain the meat demanded 
for the return feast. 

A few days later, a body of thin and famished men, their figures 
only just beginning to recover from the privations of the long jour- 
ney, but their heads high with elation and consciousness of probity 
and of duty well performed, their burros laden with sacks of peyote 
and deer meat and their necks bedecked with strings of peyote, 
marched down the street of the principal village. The tabu upon 
washing would not be removed until the great feast, and they pre- 
sented a bedraggled and filthy appearance, yet they were heroes 
to the stay-at-homes in the village as they entered the temple and 
deposited their cherished strings of roots. Then they again began 
to hunt deer in order to have plenty for the great Peyote Fiesta in 
January. 

But Jose was anxious to get home. He felt that he had done his 
share and should be excused from the month or more delay in prepa- 
ration for the fiesta in which he had but little interest. Benito took 
his part also and urged that he be allowed to depart. Many of the 
shamans took exception, fearing that such a rupture of all the regu- 



The Chief Singer of the Tepecano 



235 



lations of peyote-gathering might anger the Gods and work harm. 
But finally Benito's argument that harm, if any, would fall upon the 
culprit and his people in Azqueltan and not on the Huicholes, car- 
ried the day, and Jose was wished god-speed, loaded with gordas 
made by Benito's wife, Julia, and sent on his way. 

How beautiful the great barranca seemed as he first emerged from 
the edge of the pine forests and saw the gaping chasm below! What 
joy to make out the little cluster of adobe and thatch shacks with 
the little white church in the center! As he neared his house, his 
loving wife ran out and embraced him. How good it was to be 
home again, and how much better were her tortillas than those of 
any of the Huichol women! 

But only a few minutes did he tarry at home in spite of his long 
absence, for Josef a said at once: "Old Nestor is sick unto death and 
has been asking for you hourly. He has kept track of the time you 
have been away, and says you should be home about this time and 
that he will not go until he sees you again." 

Hastily Jose ran along the winding trail which led to the house 
of the old man, and as he neared it he heard the doleful wail of an 
old shaman singing one of his curing songs. On his blanket on the 
floor lay the old man, surrounded by his ceremonial arrows and other 
sacred paraphernalia. As Jose entered, he smiled and motioned to 
the shaman to stop singing. 

"It is useless," he said simply. "I know my time has come. 
Sooner or later it comes to all of us. But I knew you were coming 
to-day, my boy. I dreamt it last night, and I would not go until 
I saw you. I see you have brought the peyote for me. Well, it 
will never benefit me. Stay! Give me a drink of it now. It will 
make my head clearer. But the rest of it you must keep for yourself. 
You are the only one of the tribe who has fulfilled the requirement 
for Chief Singer by going to the peyote country. And besides, you 
know all the songs and prayers and all the intricate details of our 
ceremonies. And I will leave you all my cherished valuables, my 
arrows, my chimales and my cidukam. They will help you in, every 
need, and while you cherish them the Gods will allow no harm to 
befall the pueblo. Francisco! Baldomero! Must he not be Chief 
Singer after me?" 

"It is true," spoke Francisco. "Jose, my son, you are young in 



236 



American Indian Life 



years, but old in experience and knowledge. Will you not do as 
grandfather wishes?" 
Reluctantly Jose agreed. 

A few days later a straggling procession wound its way to the little 
cemetery behind the church while strong hands bore a plain black 
box containing the body of old Nestor. The burial customs of old 
had been entirely forgotten, and even if they had not, Francisco 
would have taken no chances with fate by having the old man buried 
outside of consecrated ground. But nevertheless Jose managed to 
slip a few of the old man's most cherished sacred things into the box 
with him. Later Jose went to the principal altars in the hills to 
deposit other things, besides journeying to the seat of the cura to pay 
to have masses said for the rest of his soul. 

For a year or so Jose fulfilled his office as Chief Singer dutifully, 
but then the restrictions and fasts began to pall upon him, and he 
shirked the duties and finally abandoned them altogether. Some of 
the conservatives remonstrated with him, but he replied that he 
could not see but that they had just as much rain and corn, without 
performing the ceremonies, and no more sickness and famine than 
when the ceremonies were performed, in which he was certainly 
borne out by the facts. And not long afterwards, when a "Gringo" 
scientist came to the village to study the language and customs, he 
was glad to sell all of Nestor's sacrosanct valuables at a high price 
and call it a good riddance. 

J. Alden Mason 



The Understudy of Tezcatlipoca 



THIS story 1 is a mirage of thin words and bodiless phrases. It paints 
on a film of mist things that are long ago and far away, and lifts up a 
pale reflection of cities and grandeurs lying below the horizon of our 
times, never to be resurrected in fact. It presents in a vaguely un- 
derstandable fashion, strange beliefs and philosophies that a wonder- 
ful society of human beings created out of their common thought and 
supposed necessities. 

Have you ever tried really to understand the Past, not so much 
the material Past of quaint costumes and accoutrements, as the im- 
material Past of ideals, ambitions, and enthusiasms? Have you ever 
wilfully imprisoned your present spiritual being in the emotional 
matrix of an age that is dead? In the hall where the glum old faces 
of your ancestors stare out from dull frames upon your unimagined 
new life, have you ever paused to gaze back into those dim present- 
ments, and to think how impossible to-day would be the quest of the 
Pilgrims, or of the Crusaders? And when, not so long ago, a Gothic 
fantasy in gently treated stone crumbled before the war-saddened 
eyes of the world, did this fearful thought impress itself upon 
you: No man in all Christendom can ever re-carve those shattered 
prophets or re-groin those airy arches in the dread sincerity of the 
first builders? 

Now, it is not the stone that changes, nor the chisel, nor the loves 
and hates of individual men and women: it is the over-soul of so- 
ciety that passes. For, out of our herded life of tribe or nation, 
comes an over-soul that directs our hands and implants in our minds 
the seeds of duty, the impulses of sincerity, and the recognition of 
all the needs which we think are absolute, but which, in a larger 
view, are merely relative. The cloud forms of communal emotion 
that constitute these over-souls, flame and fade like the western sky 
and never twice assume the same shapes and colors. 

In Mexico, before the steel-clad soldiers of Cortes landed at Vera 
Cruz, there was a civilization that ran back into a twilight of the 

1 At the request of the author, there has been no editing. — E. C. P. 

237 



2 3 8 



American Indian Life 



gods. Centuries of accumulating aft and ceremony had enriched 
the first crude thoughts of savages coming out of desert camps to 
abide in houses of mud and stone, amid maize stalks and squash 
vines. Cities and indeed, empires, had risen, flourished and fallen. 
There had come into being those slaves to the ideal of ritual whom 
we call priests, and those slaves to the ideal of political grandeur 
whom we call kings. And back of all these were gods to whom 
sacrifices were duly given for benefits received. And the people, 
commanded by their over-soul, raised gleaming temples on stately 
pyramids for their gods, and built palaces with bright gardens for 
their priest and kings. And, moreover, they gave honors and re- 
wards for success in trade and war and they set the marks of class 
upon certain men and their children. This is a story of their sin- 
cerity. . . . 

That wise old man, bent from much climbing of temple stairs, but 
with the steady, believing gaze which comes from watching the 
stars, foretold the distant event with deceptive clarity. He was 
reader of the fates and keeper of the calendar in Quauhnahuac, and 
after grave study of his painted books he resolved the tangled in- 
terests of greater and lesser gods in the new-born child. So he said 
to the father and the friends who crowded round : "Let him be called 
Macuilquaultli, Five-eagle, after the day on which he was born, 
and let him be well taught in all that a chief should know. He 
shall acquire grace, skill, and a knowledge of all arts, for he shall 
come to rule in a high place. Thus it is written: he shall govern 
the City." 

The father of Five-eagle was a Captain among the armed men of 
Quauhnahuac, a bearer of standards, and a councilor in matters of 
state. He proudly bore the insignia of high success in war against 
the strange-tongued people of Tolucca. Yet, Quauhnahuac was not 
a city of warriors. The populous capital of the Tlahuica (as you 
may know from that Cuernavaca of sunlight and indolence which 
survives) lay deep below the mist houses of Ajusco, in a valley 
where waters dance and flowers flame. To be sure this people had 
come out from the Seven Caves with the Azteca and other tribes, 
but they had passed down from the cold highlands and had pros- 
pered under the benign protection of Xochivuetzalli, goddess of 



The Understudy of Tezcatlipoca 239 

flowers, and patroness of all the arts that give beauty to the world 
and take vigor from it. 

Five-eagle, at the age of eight, left the shaded portico of his 
father's courtyard, where the fountain bubbled in a gleaming pool 
and where imprisoned birds sang, to study and sleep in one of the 
Great Houses with other youths. He was a slender boy with a 
pleasing and thoughtful face. Under the instruction of the old 
warriors he acquired only a careless skill in the hurling of lances, 
and took little pride when he won his set in the battering contests 
with wooden swords and shields of cane. Rather he preferred to 
beat out the thundering war songs of his people on the two-lipped 
drums. In this he became proficient beyond all others, and in his 
hands the rubber-tipped drumsticks set up wild, nerve-racking 
rhythms that soon had young men and old whirling in a mad dance 
and chanting a song of the old nomadic days. Or, hidden among the 
trees he would play lonesome melodies on flutes of clay. 

He knew the narrow hunting trails that led across the hills to the 
haunts of deer and wild turkey. He knew the great lava flow that 
stretched, in twisted and forbidding ridges, along the sides of the 
high mountain which separated Quauhnahuac from the Valley of 
the Five Lakes. He had climbed the pinnacles of black desolation 
on this lava desert and descended into its caverns of whirring bats. 

Often in the shade of a market shrine Five-eagle would encounter 
the aged priest of the calendar who had laid the gorgeous prophecy 
upon him. This wise old man knew there was no end of knowledge, 
for he squatted with his books unfolded on the ground before him, 
and diligently made other books. But always he laid aside his 
brushes and his sheets of lime-sized paper when the youth drew near. 
First he would explain what calculation was being written down, 
and then expanding to the breadth of his subject, he would tell his 
young disciple how time ran in wheels of days and years and ages, 
and how the cycles of the Morning Star fell now for good and now 
for evil fortune, and how the gods ruled the hours in turn. He 
taught the boy to calculate in high numbers, to make hieroglyphs 
and read history, and to draw with a sure skill the faces and dis- 
tinguishing marks of all the gods. 

And sometimes, at the dead of night, he took the youth with him 



240 American Indian Life 

to the top of the high pyramid and before the very door of the temple 
itself. Below them lay the sleeping city amid soft rustlings of the 
wind and sweet smells of hidden flowers. The ravines were in deep 
shadow except where a thread of water gleamed faintly. The palm- 
thatched huts of the common people were huddled in the folds of 
the valley, with here and there a chieftain's house built round a little 
court. The barracks and public buildings were placed on the four 
sides of larger squares, and in the dark of night their plaster walls 
showed ghostly white. In the market places still glowed the coals 
of dying fires, about which were massed the muffled figures of men 
who had brought their packs to market from afar. It was a solemn 
hour when mysteries crowd in upon the soul, and a still more solemn 
station. With heads together, speaking now and then in hushed and 
reverential voices, they studied the multitudinous stars as these swung 
grandly around the pole in a march of majesty across the eternal 
depths of heaven. And they kept their vigil until the great white 
Star of Morning hung like a splendid jewel above the calm snows of 
Ixtaccihuatl, the White Woman. Then the blue of the East turned 
to pearl and rose; new smoke streamed upwards through roofs of 
heavy thatch; the city stirred and the markets filled with sellers and 
buyers; the yellow Sun had given another day. 

Once Five-eagle and the old priests journeyed together to the 
ruined site of Xochicalco, where one fair temple was still used in 
religious services. But the walls of a hundred more lay in shape- 
less heaps of fallen stone. In front and on either side, the terraced 
hill dropped off to great depths, but behind it rose another hill to 
a commanding height with a stronghold on its crest. The priest 
related fragments of history of this all-but-forgotten capital, shards 
of myths with names of kings and empty dates to signify resounding 
triumphs. Then he spoke sadly : "The glories of the great pass like 
the smoke of Popocatepetl, leaving the skies serene." 

"But Tenochtitlan," broke in the youth, "tell me about that 
famous city, for surely you have been there and seen its wonders. 
Once from the top of Ajusco I looked down, far down, across the 
lava, and I saw the five lakes like five mists in the valley, and there 
was Tenochtitlan shining like a jewel. And I saw the roads that 
lead out from the land like a spider's web." 

"Tenochtitlan: yes, I have seen it, and its gardens and temples 



The Understudy of Tezcatlipoca 241 

are rich and beautiful. Its priests and warrior chiefs have much 
jade and green feathers of the quetzal. Yet Tenochtitlan is youngest 
of all the cities of Anahuac. Many ages older are Chalco, Colhua- 
can, Atzcapotzalco— and Tezcoco, too, where ruled the loved singer. 
They say that Tenochtitlan was nought but a rock amid the reeds of 
the great lake when the Azteca came in bondage and distress. But 
these sought favor of Tacuba to fish and build floating gardens. 
Then came Acamapichtli and his sons, so that the fishermen went 
forth to fight, and their god Huitzilopochtli gave them victory. 
And now the ancient cities have fallen, save only Tezcoco, in all the 
valley. Those Azteca of Tenochtitlan go now to Colima and Tuxpan 
for tribute and captives, and even past Cholula to the lands of the 
Zapoteca. Their traders first go forth with shining goods to spy 
out the way; then their warriors fall like the lightning flash. Only 
the wild Tarasca have turned them back, and those of Tlaxcala, 
fighting behind stone walls." 

So the priest of the calendar told the long history of Mexico, and 
he described the great feasts that fell, one each twenty days, till the 
year was done. He discussed the signs and powers of the various 
gods who thirsted for the blood of human sacrifices and hungered for 
hearts that were freely given. 

"But they say," said Five-eagle, "that in ancient times we gave 
only flowers to our Xochiquetzalli. Now we must offer children to 
her or she will be displeased." 

"They," replied the priest softly, "are the most precious flowers! 
And to her who gives should be returned gifts as precious. Yet, I 
think pride of place enters sometimes into sacrifices, and that there 
is human boasting where the altars are piled too high. If only the 
Cause of All, to whom even the gods are quarreling children, would 
speak the last truth, so that man might understand! But if Tlaloc 
calls for a sprinkling of blood before he will give us showers of rain, 
then it is indeed just that he should have his blood. Without rain 
the world would die. Yet Huitzilopochtli, under whose standard 
fight those of Tenochtitlan, is a god of war alone. He can promise 
only plunder. He is a little god suddenly grown to commanding 
stature, so that all the cities pay tribute to his children. But Tez- 
catlipoca is the great one of all the land ; he is the Magician to whom 
nothing is hidden— may he remember us only in gentle mood!" 



242 American Indian Life 

There stands to this day in Cuernavaca a graven bowlder bearing 
a shield, a sheaf of arrows and a record in hieroglyphs of the fatal 
hour when the painted warriors of Tenochtitlan swept down upon 
Quauhnahuac. Then the City of Flowers withered before a rain 
of flint and a wind of flame. And among the men and women car- 
ried away as slaves or more honorable sacrifice was Five-eagle. 
This young man had disclosed, in the stress of that sudden attack, 
the qualities of true leadership. Out of the confusion he had 
emerged at the head of his people, leading them vainly against the 
foe. Yet he was captured at last and taken to Tenochtitlan without 
degradation, wearing still his earplugs of jade, sandals, and the 
embroidered mantle of his rank. 

And then the prophecy of his birth was justified. For, because 
of his beauty, his daring and his arts of music and song, Five-eagle 
was raised to wealth, honor and the power of kings. ^ He was made 
that other Tezcatlipoca to live among men and enjoy life and be 
granted every wish while the year turned slowly round to the feast 
of Toxcatl. His laughter meant good fortune to all the land, and 
his momentary sorrow spelled calamity. But at the end, replete 
with every honor, accomplished in every grace, surfeited with every 
joy, he must go freely under the black knife of glass. And the offer 
of his youth must be made so that the youth of Tezcatlipoca should 
be eternal, so that his powers should not wither with the creeping 
infirmities of time, so that his mysteries should still give forth life 
and happiness to the sad tribes of men. 

What wonderful beings are the gods that men have imagined out 
of hopes and fears in the twilight of faith! They are creatures of 
beauty and terror, shaped from stars and storm winds and green 
waters and from the subtle and powerful beasts. Or they rise still 
higher to the very form and mind of their creator, man. They loom 
forever majestic, immortalized by the sincerities of human sacrifice, 
by prayers and incense and devoted lives, by ceremony and all its 
pictured train of magnificence and centered power, by temples and 
songs and statues that artists, in the grip of common thought, yield 
up and create. They are the over-souls of nations made visible from 
afar. But to their makers they are the blinding light of a great 
presence. 

And what more gallant god ever bestrode the heavens than Tez- 



The Understudy of Tezcatlipoca 243 



catlipoca of the Mexicans? He was a Lord of Magic, inscrutable, 
pitiless, magnificent. He combined the wisdom of white hair and 
wrinkled cheeks with the reckless joy of never-passing youth. He 
was swift and cunning and unconquerable, making and breaking 
fates, snaring his brother gods in wizard traps. He was not alone 
the Smoking Mirror in which the world lay reflected, he was the Sun 
that looked down into the hearts of men, he was the prowling Jaguar, 
he was the night wind stealing across land and sea. Yet in his 
proper guise he was Youth with all its wiles and enchantments: 
Youth that was graceful, debonair, beguiling as music, subtle as the 
perfume of flowers, — but cruel, swift and terrible as the lightning 
bolt. 

The greatest feast of the Mexican year was the feast of Toxcatl, 
made in honor of Tezcatlipoca. It fell in the springtime when 
thirsty fields called for rain. Scarcely had one young warrior, cho- 
sen from the clean-limbed and accomplished prisoners of a sacred 
war, been sacrificed on the last day of his fictitious glory than another 
stepped into the empty role. And, as had been said, it was the fate of 
Five-eagle, after his arrival at the Aztecan capital, to be chosen as a 
fit candidate for this dramatic death. With a true knowledge of the 
symbolism and significance of the ceremony in the emotional fabric 
that then was Mexico, he assumed the part proudly, and made ready 
his mind to play out the drama to the end, with minute regard for 
all the details and effects. 

A retinue of pages, the sons of chiefs and great merchants of 
Tenochtitlan, accompanied him in his daily wanderings about the 
city. These were six in number. They were dressed in fine 
liveries and it was their duty to see that their master, whom they 
addressed as Tezcatlipoca, did not fall into sad thoughts. A sacred 
college of girls embroidered new garments for Five-eagle and each 
day braided fresh garlands of fragrant blossoms to hang about his 
neck. Later, from this house of virgins, it was fated that four maid- 
ens should be chosen to act as his brides, during the last month of 
his earthly life, the month of Toxcatl, crowded with gayeties and 
tears. 

So Five-eagle, as the Youth of Toxcatl, walked through the public 
squares of Tenochtitlan and over the many bridges that spanned 
its canals, and on the great wall that held back the storm winds of 



244 



American Indian Life 



the lake. Clothed in the bright habiliments of divinity, with a 
laughing retinue, he played upon his flutes and chanted songs and 
danced. And no one in all the city remembered to have seen an un- 
derstudy of the great God of Magic in other years so skilled in all 
the graces or so well taught to tread the brief stage of vanity and 
pride. Five-eagle, a captive from the enslaved city of Quauhna- 
huac, where Xochiquetzalli had been worshiped in happier times, 
ruled great and small in Tenochtitlan. 

He chanted many songs that the people loved, but none that was 
so great a favorite as a splendid lament of fallen soldiers, a requiem 
of the young men who died in the sacred service of arms. All 
Mexico knew this song composed by a famous ruler of the Toltec 
cities whose name was a smile and a benediction after the passing of 
many years. 

Words like the saddest, drooping flowers I seek 
I, the Singer, weaving my tears in song, 
For Youths, alas! — broken as spears are broken! 
And the women weep in darkened corners 
But the men lift up their heads in pride. 

A valiant song it was, full of high courage and the will that con- 
quers death. Upon such songs as this, planted deep in human hearts, 
rest the brave deeds of nations. 

So Five-eagle passed through Tenochtitlan with his pages by his 
side, in the white mantle of Tezcatlipoca, with a garland of fragrant 
blossoms about his neck. His chanted verses charmed the market 
and the court to silence and tears, but when the song was done there 
was sudden laughter, and he was pelted with flowers by a gay throng. 
And he was invited to enter the houses and to eat of the choicest 
fruits, and to rest under canopies of those rare trees with crowns of 
cardinal, that now we call poinsettia. 

Among the girls who did service in the temple of Tezcatlipoca, 
according to the law of consecration that none might escape, there 
was one who had come to look upon Five-eagle as more than a man, 
perhaps, — but less than a god. Once, as she had thrown across his 
shoulder a wreath of her own weaving, he had looked at her with 
unclouded eyes and a faint, steady smile. And she had turned away, 
thrilled and chilled with awakened interest in life and sudden visions 



The Understudy of Tezcatlipoca 



245 



of death. In the days that followed she wove other wreaths and 
awaited his coming at a certain place. And though she greeted the 
Youth of Toxcatl with a smile, she turned away in tears. 

A kindly priest saw and understood. He knew that women were 
used to weep and moan for all the fine burst of glory that death might 
bring to the stilled flesh. Women, in the thoughts of Aztecan poets 
and philosophers, were flowers blooming near the ground. They 
were crushed beneath the feet of Huitzilopochtli leading his men 
to war. They could not be trusted for supreme sacrifices, and must 
be caught by surprise and trapped in the midst of revelry. 

By the water gate against Tlaltelolco, when night was falling 
and mists were stretching filmy hands across the lake, the priest 
spoke to the girl of Tenochtitlan, "My child, are you envious of the 
gift that must be given cheerfully to a god who knows all thoughts? 
Do you dare love the consecrated sacrifice of Toxcatl?" 

"Then why do those of the upper skies put seeds of love in our 
hearts to grow and bloom when it is spring?" 

"That sometimes we may climb, my child, to heights where only 
the mind rules. The Youth of Toxcatl is a captive of Quauhna- 
huac. He fought bravely; he will die bravely that the city and all 
Mexico may prosper. Should he falter, he will live as a vile slave 
unworthy of a bright death; he will live as a vile slave condemned 
to life — beneath the whip. Daughters of Tenochtitlan may not 
mate with slaves." 

She stood rigidly by the wall as the priest spoke, a mutinous and 
tragic figure, with yellow flowers in her hair. On the towers of the 
water gate the torches were being lighted so that belated fishing boats 
might find their way into the city. The stars were beginning to 
twinkle faintly. 

"But twenty days remain for that gallant boy," said the priest 
softly, "for to-morrow is the feast of Huey Tozoztli, the great Hu- 
mility, and then begins the month of Toxcatl, of such gladness and 
sorrow. Twenty days mean much when there is new love to be 
gathered and enjoyed. There are four who shall be his brides, im- 
personating in name and dress those four gracious beings of the ninth 
heaven to whom the love of Tezcatlicopa is given. If you might be 
the first of these, would your mind be content and filled with happy 



246 



American Indian Life 



thoughts? Would you teach your will to strengthen his and not 
let your soft tears plunge him in worse than death, you to despair 
and the land to disaster?" 

A new light shone in the eyes of the girl. "See how I shall 
laugh to the last," she said, "and be happy in the noon of love and 
in him who is noble." So among the gifts that came vicariously 
to Five-eagle, as the impersonator of Tezcatlipoca, there was a 
humble gift of love for him alone. But this is a tale of the stupen- 
dous lights and shadows that pass, not of those little ones of love 
and hate, forever found in human hearts. 

When the sun rose after the feast of Huey Tozoztli, Five-eagle 
was installed in a royal house with many rooms and a wide court. 
Then the dancing that began with the sun ended with the paling stars. 
They dressed the hair of Five-eagle as if he were a leader in the 
army and they put new jewels upon him. When he went out into 
the streets of the city, the people knelt as he passed and bowed their 
heads and prayed. But in the temple many things were prepared 
behind the veil. 

On the tenth day before the feasts of Toxcatl a priest in the 
common livery of the God of Magic stepped out into the market- 
place and, while the multitude of buyers and sellers stood in silent 
awe, he played a summons on his clay flute. The shrill notes were 
directed first to the east and then to the north and west and south, 
so that the universe might be aware. When the signal notes had 
died away, every one bent forward and, having taken a bit of earth 
upon a finger tip placed it in the mouth as a sign of humility and 
abnegation. Then they wept strongly and threw themselves upon 
the ground, invoking the darkness of nights, the invisible winds, and 
other unknowable manifestations through which the great god spoke, 
imploring that men upon the earth be not forgotten, nor over- 
whelmed with labors, nor left in misery and despair. And because 
the God of Magic could look into secret deeds and thoughts, the 
thieves and murderers and those whose deeds had been secret 
and sinful were struck with great fear and sadness, and their faces 
altered with fright so that men knew their guilt. With tears they 
pleaded for clemency to an intangible, invisible presence, while in- 
cense carried their prayers upward. And the strong men of war 
bowed themselves in great agonies and begged for strength against 



The Understudy of Tezcatlipoca 247 

all enemies, that they might return from their forays with many cap- 
tives. So the shrill notes of the flute opened the floodgates of fear 
throughout the great city and there were tremblings and tears. In 
the still air, threads of smoke rose upward; now they were white 
from fragrant copal, now black from evil-smelling rubber. 

On the fifth day before the feast of Toxcatl, the high priest of 
Mexico that in those days was Tizoc, locked himself in an inner 
room of his palace while his courtiers bowed low and acknowledged 
Five-eagle as lord. A day of submission was granted to each quar- 
ter of the city, and with pomp and pageants the temporary powers 
of an empire were conferred upon the impersonator of Tezcatlipoca. 
And the grandeurs crowded into these days kept sorrow from the 
eyes of a love which could see too clearly. 

Before dawn of the last day, the priests went into the temple and 
removed the old garments from the stone image of Tezcatlicopa and 
refurbished it with new clothes, and adorned it, moreover, with 
feather ornaments and bangles and spread over it a bright canopy. 
Then they drew back the curtains of the temple so that the world 
might see the hard and splendid image. As this was done, a high 
priest came out with flowers in his hand, and played again a sum- 
mons addressed to the east and the north and the west and the south. 

When the multitude had gathered in the principal court of the 
city, before the temple enclosure with its serpent walls, a procession 
formed behind Five-eagle and the stone image of the god and two 
priests who carried ladles of incense. Five-eagle was seated on a 
gorgeous litter carried high on the shoulders of men. Behind him 
rode the high priests of the cults of magic with their bodies painted 
black and their hair tied at the nape with white ribbons. Then a 
throng of youths and maidens, comprising those specially dedicated 
to a year's service in the temple of Tezcatlipoca, rushed forth with 
a rope of surprising whiteness in their hands, encircling with it the 
line of gorgeous litters. This rope was made up of threaded pop- 
corn and was symbolical, so they say, of the thirstiness of the fields. 
The boys were dressed in mantles of open network, and the girls in 
new smocks with gay embroideries at neck and hem, but all of them 
wore necklaces of popcorn and turbans as well. Then the priests, 
leaning forward, took long strings of the white corn to wrap around 
their heads and to loop over the sides of the litters. Then the pro- 



248 American Indian Life 

cession moved slowly forward over a road of green leaves strewn 
with flowers. On the ground, too, were strewn needle-like tips of 
the maguey with which many penitents perforated tongue and ears 
till they were bathed in blood that glistened horribly in the sunlight. 
And there were others in the long procession who lashed themselves 
with knotted cords. But such are the ways of frenzy whenever the 
souls of men are stirred in common. 

It would prove over-tiresome should all the happenings of the 
marvelous day be related in full detail. There was a solemn sitting 
in state on the summit of the pyramid of Tezcatlipoca and before 
the door of the temple, where stood likewise the grim idol of stone, 
while complicated dances were being enacted in the court below. 
And Five-eagle, with a precise and certain artistry, wasted no mo- 
ments of the triumph forecast at his birth and compromised in no 
feature his dignities and obligations. 

The water pageant came at the end of the long, brilliant day 
when the sun was dropping towards the mountain crests. There 
was a long line of the largest canoes, laden with flowers and colored 
streamers and surmounted with awnings and sunshades. In the 
first of these Five-eagle sat erect on a royal seat with his brides be- 
side him. The waters of the lake were calm, with pale reflections 
of gossamer clouds, and the boats struck a wide wake that found the 
distant reeds and willows. 

Still there was laughter and gayety, but that one who in fantasy 
was a goddess of mountain crests had floating mists in her eyes while 
her lips formed a tremulous smile. On her black hair rested softly 
the hand of a lover, mortal at heart, but divine in a subtle play of 
mind over substance. 

"O little Lady of the House of Mists, see how your white fogs 
cling to Ajusco, dropping dew on the cosmos flowers that Xochiquet- 
zalli loves." 

"They are mists of a joyful sorrow, my Lord, they are mists of 
sorrow that obscure the world to-day that it may be fairer to- 
morrow." 

"Then tell me that no shadows shall lie across your heart to- 
morrow when the fishing boats enter the canal at sunset. Tell me 
there shall be no shadows but only content in what has been, O my 
precious Lady of Mists." 



The Understudy of Tezcatlipoca 249 

"Youth of Toxcatl, there shall be no weeping." 
At a rocky point called Tlapitzahuayan the procession of canoes 
came to land. Here the courtiers and the four brides of the Youth 
of Toxcatl took merry leave of him, and he set out with his six boys 
for Tlacuchcalco, a nearby ancient temple, neglected and unused 
except on this one occasion of the year. A winding trail led to a 
rocky field of cactus and acacia to a temple mound overrun with 
desert growths. A broken stair climbed upward to a crumbling 
sacrificial chamber whose doorway was nearly closed by yellow or- 
chids and thorny vines. Behind this humble screen, the thirsty knife 
of the great Magician awaited its draft of blood. The boys of the 
retinue followed in the footsteps of Five-eagle, and from the shore 
rang out a last sally of uplifting laughter. 

At the foot of the temple stairs they took from his shoulders the 
white mantle of the god who must be kept youthful at the cost of 
youth, and they unwrapped from his waist the gayly brocaded breech- 
cloth, and they took from his feet the sandals, and from his ears the 
disks of apple-green jade, the last symbols of his year of earthly 
power. Only around his neck remained the necklace of flutes. He 
was a naked mortal, come, in the last humility of all men, to make 
the sincere gift of his life itself to a jealous and implacable god. 
With a gallant smile Five-eagle dismissed his pages and mounted 
the broken stairs; pausing on each step to break a flute between his 
two hands. Only a moment later and a human body, naked, hor- 
ribly gaping at the breast, came crashing down the temple stairs, 
staining the brambles and the stones with blood. 

We can know the Past only as a masquerade of the Present. We 
can imagine only those smells and colors which have come into our 
nostrils and have passed before our eyes. To-day there are no gods, 
you say, and it is true that terrible Siva and the sweet face of Christ 
fade back into the haze that covers unbelief. 

Yet, to-day, how many a young Icarus plunges gladly to his death 
from dizzy heights. Does Necessity make us invade the airy king- 
dom of the birds or the green depths of the sea? Or are we driven 
to these conquests by the lusts and sincerities of a new commanding 



250 American Indian Life 

over-soul, built out of song and fellowship and ordered lives of work 
and play? For the harnessed Powers enslave their busy masters, 
and the new-found gods of Speed and Thrill count victims as freely 
offered as that Youth of Toxcatl, who bravely climbed to the bloody 
altar of his sacrifice in Tenochtitlan that is no more. The soul of 
the Machine comes forth to rule the prostrate nations that another 
age may see a strange mirage thrown upward on the pale mists ot 

romance - Herbert Spinden 



How Holon Chan Became The True 



A YOUTH of seventeen sat on the summit of the loftiest pyramid in 
the city, and gazed moodily out over the surrounding temples and 
palaces, and the thatched huts of the more lowly folk beyond, to the 
grasslands, which swept as far as the eye could reach in every di- 
rection. 

He was naked save only for a sash-like cotton breechclout, so 
arranged that one end fell between his legs in front, the other in 
the same position behind, the ends being elaborately broidered 
with green feathers. A pendant of beautifully carved jade hung 
about his neck. Ear-plugs of the same material and sandals of deer 
hide with feather tassels completed his costume. In height he was 
under five feet and a half, slender, supple, small as to hands and feet, 
and a pleasing, warm golden brown in color. His eyes were black 
and narrow and in their placement somewhat slanting. His nose 
was aquiline and long, and merged into his flattened forehead in 
one straight line. During his babyhood his head had been bound 
between two boards to secure this very effect, an effect of beauty and 
distinction among his people. His hair was black, glossy and long. 
It was braided and then wrapped around his head except for a small 
queue which hung behind. 

The time was the month of August 531 A. D. ; the place, Tikal, 
the greatest metropolis of the Old Maya Empire; and the youth 
himself, no less a person than the ruler-to-be of the splendid city 
stretching at his feet, as well as of many smaller dependencies be- 
yond the waste of grassy savannas which bounded his vision. 

His discontent was of long standing and arose from a condition 
which he could not alter. His father, Ahmekat Chan, the preceding 
"True Man" of Tikal, had died two years before, leaving this boy, 
Holon Chan, as his sole surviving child and heir. The government 
of the state during the period of his minority had been carried on 
under the regency of his paternal uncle, Ahcuitok Chan, High Priest 
of Itzamna, aided by the powerful priesthood of this god, head of 
the Maya Pantheon; but now the people were clamoring for the 



Man of 




251 



252 American Indian Life 

investiture of Holon Chan in the supreme office, so that certain of 
the highest ceremonies, which only the True Man might perform, 
could be celebrated once again, and indeed Ahcuitok Chan was only 
awaiting the conclusion of the current five-year period to invest his 
nephew as True Man of Tikal. Itzamna, Lord of Heaven, had 
indicated through the mouthpiece of his priests that this event should 
be solemnized on the closing day of this period, and preparations 
for it had now been going forward for some time. 

Now the boy had little heart for his coming dignity. His had 
always been a roving nature; he was a child of the open air, a lover 
of the forest fastnesses and solitudes, better suited to the humble lot 
of wood gatherer or corn planter than to that of ruler of a people. 

The great discoveries of the preceding century, of large and won- 
derfully fertile lands far to the north of his own domains, had fired 
his imagination, and he burned to lead his people to this new land 
of promise, where the gods were said always to smile, and the corn- 
fields to yield bountifully. Nor had these hopes always been with- 
out foundation. Once he had an older brother, named Chac Chan, 
who was to have succeeded their father as True Man, but while on 
a communal deer hunt, this brother had been bitten by a poisonous 
serpent, the deadly wolpuch, from whose bitter sting none ever re- 
covered, and had died, leaving Holon Chan next in line of succession. 
And now the time was come when the exacting demands of his 
position, the elaborate ritual, which would fill his every hour, and 
the cares of the council chamber, would deprive him of every vestige 
of personal liberty. 

The Maya people at this time, in Maya reckoning the close of 
Katin 18, were at once at the zenith of their power, and at the thresh- 
old of their decline. For generations now, the heavily forested 
lands which originally had surrounded their cities, towns and vil- 
lages, had been gradually transformed under their primitive methods 
of cultivation into grassy savannas. This method of cultivation 
consisted in felling patches of the forests at the end of the rainy 
season in January or February, in burning the dried trees and bushes 
at the end of the dry season in March or April, and in planting 
after the first rains in May. The following year a new patch of 
forest was sought and the process repeated, nor was the first patch 
planted again for several years until a new growth of bush had come 



The True Man of His People 



253 



up, since experience showed that the use of the same cornfield two 
successive years would yield only a half crop the second year. This 
method of cultivation however, had two serious defects: not only 
was the greater part of the land thus always held idle, but also there 
eventually came a time when woody growth no longer came back 
to replace the original forests. Instead only perennial grasses would 
grow, and gradually the whole countryside was transformed into 
savannas. These savannas the Maya could not cultivate since they 
had no means of turning the sod, and they were thus obliged to go 
ever farther and farther from their homes in order to find suitable 
land for planting their corn. But the limit to which even this ex- 
pedient was practicable had been reached at last. The cornfields 
now lay two, and even three days' journey from the cities, and people 
were beginning to lose faith in deities who permitted living con- 
ditions to remain so intolerable, and who either could not, or would 
not make possible the cultivation of the savannas. 

Holon Chan was not the only one whose eyes turned ever more 
anxiously toward the north, to Yucatan, where life was said to be so 
easy, and Yum Kax, Lord of the Harvests, always so propitious; 
and many a humble corn planter had stolen away with his family 
through the great northern forests to this new land, in spite of the 
stringent laws against such a procedure. Both priesthood and no- 
bility were strongly opposed to this disintegrating movement, and 
oracle as well as law was being invoked to prevent the abandon- 
ment of the country. But, despite threats of divine wrath and the 
swifter punishment of men, for the death penalty had been exacted 
more than once for this very offense, a steady stream of people was 
pouring out of the Old Empire region, northward into Yucatan; it 
was whispered for example, that the priests of Itzamna at the Holy 
City of Palenque could scarcely muster enough temple servants to 
till the fields of the god himself. This news could not be repeated 
openly, but more and more people were coming to believe that the 
old land was accursed and that the only salvation of their race lay 
in a general exodus to the north. Indeed every one saw that if 
some way was not speedily found to cultivate the grasslands, the 
people would be starved into moving elsewhere. 

Meanwhile the priests were holding forth every inducement for 
greater piety and religious zeal. It was said that the people were 



254 



American Indian Life 



lax in their offerings, and the gods were offended. The sacrifices 
must be redoubled. And latterly, with the approaching accession 
of Holon Chan as True Man, the auguries and oracles had fore- 
told that this event would usher in a new era of abundance and 
prosperity, the like of which had never been before. The boy, the 
priests widely circulated, was born on a lucky day, of which Yum 
Kax, Lord of the Harvests, was the patron, and the death of his older 
brother, far from being a calamity, had been a direct intervention of 
the gods in order that the chosen of Yum Kax should sit in the coun- 
cil chamber and rule over them. Thus was the Lord of the Har- 
vests to be appeased, and thus would prosperity return once more 
to the people. High hopes therefore were entertained for his rule, 
and while in other happier days, Holon Chan might possibly have 
been permitted to renounce in favor of his uncle, the times were too 
troublous, and the future too uncertain thus deliberately to offend 
the Harvest God. 

Of all these things the boy had been thinking as he sat on the 
temple summit, watching the shadows lengthen over the glistening 
white walls of the city. Finally with a sigh he jumped to his feet 
The sun was setting behind the distant savannas, a great, glowing, 
red disk, as Holon Chan turned to enter the sanctuary of Itzamna 
to sacrifice to the god. A single aged white-robed priest squatted 
in the outer corridor guarding the sanctuary, but since the boy always 
had the right of entry because of his rank, the old man scarcely 
looked up from his meditations as Holon Chan drew aside the 
elaborately embroidered cotton curtain and passed within. 

The sanctuary was dark save only for such fitful light as came 
from a brazier of burning incense and two small windows not more 
than eight inches square, one at either end of the long narrow room. 
As the curtain fell behind him, the boy stooped to a shallow platter 
by the door, selected from it a small, round ball of incense, the gum 
of the copal tree, painted a brilliant peacock blue for ceremonial 
use, and advanced to the brazier. In the half light, a wooden image 
some eight feet high could be distinguished standing on a stone plat- 
form against the back wall. It was in the form of an old man, with 
prominent Roman nose, toothless lower jaw, and piercing green eyes, 
made of two discs of highly polished jade which caught and shot 
back the flickering light. The head was surmounted by an elabo- 



The True Man of His People 



255 



rate headdress carved in the likeness of the Plumed Serpent, and the 
whole figure was brilliantly painted in red, blue, yellow, green, 
white and black. A necklace, breast-pendant, ear-plugs, anklets and 
wristlets of heavy, rich jade completed the costume of the image. 
Holon Chan placed his offerings on the brazier and prostrated him- 
self before the image. However disinclined he might be to follow 
the path Itzamna had chosen for him by removing his older brother 
from the line of succession, it never entered the boy's head to evade 
the responsibility thus thrust upon him. He came of an old and 
distinguished family which had ruled the state of Tikal for more than 
four centuries. From that distant ancestor of his, who had first led 
the people to their present home, down to his father, all had been 
brave men used to facing crises and shouldering responsibility, and 
this latest son of the Chan race had no other thought than to do like- 
wise in the present emergency. And so he prayed long and earnestly 
for wisdom to meet the many problems of the future, and above all 
for some means of alleviating the terrible agricultural problems 
which were threatening the very existence of his people. 

The prayer over, Holon Chan left the sanctuary and, nodding to 
its aged guardian in the outer corridor, he prepared to descend 
the pyramid. The swift twilight of the tropics had already dis- 
solved into night. Above, the stars blazed forth in the cloudless 
sky; below, the darkness was picked out here and there with little 
glowing points of red, the cooking fires of his people, who were 
busily preparing for the great ceremony of his investiture, now but 
three days distant. 

Carefully picking his way down the steep stairway, Holon Chan 
crossed the broad, paved plaza at its base, and ascending a low 
terrace, entered a long building of cut stone, which had been the 
home of his family for generations. It was a single story in height, 
more than two hundred feet long and three ranges of rooms in depth. 
These all had the typical Maya arched ceiling, were narrow and 
long, and lighted only by the exterior doorways and small, square 
windows about six feet above the floor. The largest room in the 
palace, a chamber sixty feet long, ten feet wide, and eighteen feet 
high, was entered directly through the central doorway. At one end 
was a raised stone platform with a wooden seat. This was without 
a back and the arms were carved to represent jaguar heads. Above 



256 American Indian Life 

there was a canopy of green featherwork. This was the council 
chamber of the state. 

Through this chamber Holon Chan passed to the living quarters 
at the rear, and, clapping his hands, he summoned a slave to serve 
the evening meal to him as he sat cross-legged on the floor. Pres- 
ently the slave returned bearing dishes of tortillas and black beans, 
a bush fowl, and a bowl containing an aromatic drink made of cacao. 
Holon Chan inquired for his uncle, and he was told that he was at 
the monastery of Itzamna. After eating, and rinsing out his mouth 
with water, a not-to-be-forgotten custom of gentlefolk, Holon Chan 
withdrew to his own room, and lying down on a bench covered with 
soft skins soon fell asleep. 

Early the following morning, Holon Chan arose, and after a bath 
in a wooden tub, hollowed from a mahogany log, he dressed, but 
partook of no food, since custom decreed that he must fast through- 
out the period of his investiture. Thus he waited for his uncle to 
fetch him to the assembled priesthood of Itzamna. This first day 
of the induction ceremonies was to be given over exclusively to 
mental tests, quizzings by his uncle and the other priests of Itzamna, 
in the monastery of the god just behind his temple. It was proper 
for Holon Chan to appear before the priests without any emblem 
of rank, and presently when his uncle came to lead him thither, he 
was dressed as any other boy of his age, a simple breechclout en- 
circling his loins, and leather sandals on his feet. 

Of the many subjects Holon Chan was questioned about during 
that long day, we may only touch upon a few. First his uncle asked 
him to recite the complete ritual of the New Year's feast, one of the 
most important ceremonies of the Maya year. Other old wise- 
heads questioned him as to the stars, when would the next eclipses 
of the sun and moon take place, when would Venus next appear as 
evening star? Clean sheets of fiber paper were set before him, pig- 
ments and brushes were brought in, and he was told to write the 
current date, giving the phases of the moon therefor, and the pre- 
siding deity. All these tests he went through creditably, and the old 
men nodded approval. Next a fowl was brought and the boy was 
told to kill it and read the omens from its entrails. Again he ac- 
quitted himself with credit, and the old priests were satisfied with his 
knowledge of this important part of the Maya ritual. 



The True Man of His People 



257 



In conclusion his uncle again took the lead, and put searching 
questions to him as to the condition of the people — how many heads 
of families were there in the tribe, and how many man-loads of corn 
were required to support the average family for a year? With 
which cities he should strive to ally himself, and which to avoid? 
How migration to Yucatan could best be discouraged? When the 
boy replied it could neither be discouraged nor prevented unless the 
Harvest Lord permitted corn to be grown on the savannas, a few of 
the older men shook their heads, but the great majority of the priests 
signified their approval of this sage answer. After these tests he was 
led from the monastery back to the palace, and later his uncle in- 
formed him that the priests had adjudged him to be worthy and well 
qualified to be made the True Man of the state. 

The second day was even more strenuous than the first. The day 
was devoted to numerous rites of purification, in which by sweatings 
and blood-lettings he was supposed to be purged of all sin and 
wickedness, and thus fitted for the high office he was about to assume. 

Following this the priests led him to the Temple of Purification. 
Here, in an inner chamber, he removed his clothes and crawled, 
naked, into a low stone closet. A bowl of water stood at the back 
of this low cell, and presently the priests passed in through the small 
doorway five or six large, rounded, heated stones wrapped in leaves. 
The doorway was now closed by a slab of stone, and Holon Chan 
dropped these heated bowlders, one at a time, into the bowl of water. 
Each succeeding bowlder raised the temperature of the water, and 
soon clouds of vapor filled the cell. From time to time more hot 
stones were passed in and the boy thus kept the water boiling. Beads 
of sweat broke out over his body; he almost suffocated, but still he 
served the steaming bowl with heated stones, and still the tempera- 
ture rose. Every pore streamed and he gasped for breath. When 
it seemed as though he could stand it no longer, the slab was suddenly 
removed, the vapor rushed out and he was left panting and faint 
from the heat and his hunger, and the first step toward ceremonial 
purification was over. 

Next they gave him a violent emetic, which left him com- 
pletely prostrated from weakness. With the characteristic stoicism 
of his race, however, he uttered no complaint, but presently gained 
sufficient strength to pass on to the next trial, a cruel and painful 



258 



American Indian Life 



letting of blood. His uncle bade him put out his tongue and through 
the end of it, he thrust a sharp stone awl. Waiting priests caught 
the blood on little balls of cotton and these were borne off to the 
sanctuary of Itzamna as an earnest of his faith and purification. At 
sunset a small fiber cord with thorns caught in it every few inches 
was passed through the still open wound, cruelly lacerating the 
flesh, and fresh blood drawn to offer to the god in renewed proof 
of his constancy of purpose. That night Holon Chan was so ex- 
hausted that he slept without stirring, until awakened before dawn 
to prepare himself for the long day of meditation and prayer in the 
sanctuary of Itzamna which preceded the actual investiture at 
sunset. 

Preparations for this ceremony had been going forward now for 
a long time. It has been told how Itzamna had indicated that the 
investiture of the new True Man must coincide with the unveiling 
of the great stone shaft which had been erected to commemorate 
the end of the current five-year period of the Maya Chronological 
Era. As much as a year before, this shaft had been quarried, trans- 
ported to the Great Plaza of Tikal, set up there and a high fence 
of thatch built around it to conceal it from the people until the mo- 
ment of its unveiling. 

Ahcuitok Chan in consultation with the most learned astrologer 
priests of the state had carefully calculated what would be the 
nearest solar and lunar eclipses to the day of dedication (then still 
nearly a year ahead). Other astronomical phenomena important 
during the current five-year period, had been compiled, together 
with a record of the principal events of the period. These matters 
had been written down in the Maya hieroglyphic writing, on pieces 
of fiber paper coated with a sizing of fine white lime, which served 
as working drawings for the artisans who were to carve the shaft; 
and finally the likeness of Holon Chan himself, gorgeously appar- 
eled as he would be at the ceremony of investiture, had been labori- 
ously carved on the front. This monument, which was to mark the 
ending of the current five-year period, 9.18.0.0.0. 11 Ahau 18 Mac 
of the Maya Era, was at last ready, and would be unveiled at the 
proper moment, namely the instant of sunset on the closing day of 
the period. This had to be so, since to the Maya, time was con- 
ceived and measured in terms of elapsed units (like our own astro- 



The True Man of His People 259 



nomical time), and not until the final day of the period came to its 
end, that is at sunset on the last day, could the monument com- 
memorating that period be formally dedicated thereto. 

But now all was in readiness for the great festival, upon which, 
as has been noted, so many and such high hopes had been builded. 
For the past several days, people had been pouring into Tikal. 
From the farthest outlying villages men, women and children were 
moving toward the religious and governmental center of the state. 
The surrounding savannas were filled with temporary shelters of 
thatch, and booths had sprung up everywhere for the barter of tor- 
tillas, beans, squash, sapotes, cacao, bush meats, gourds, pottery, 
mats, featherwork, hides, cotton stuffs, and even beads and pendants 
of jade, the most highly prized of all materials by the Maya. 

The Great Plaza of Tikal had been filling with people since 
midnight, eager to catch the first glimpse of their future ruler as 
he was being conducted at daybreak to the sanctuary of Itzamna 
for prayer and meditation. His learning tried and tested by the 
wise men of the state on the first day; his body purged of sin and 
wickedness by rites of purification, and his fortitude and earnestness 
of purpose established by his giving of blood to Itzamna on the second 
day, there remained only that he should cleanse his soul of any lurk- 
ing grossness, by prayer and meditation, and he would then be ready 
for the most solemn moment of his life, his formal consecration as 
the True Man of his people. 

After rising, Holon Chan bathed, and donned again the simple 
girdle worn by common folk, in token that he had not yet received 
the supreme rank, and passed into the council chamber. Here all 
the great dignitaries of the state, the high priests of the different 
Maya deities, the chieftains of the dependent towns and villages, 
the collectors of taxes, deputies, and other officials had assembled in 
gala costume — magnificent cloaks of featherwork, gorgeous pan- 
aches of plumes, mantles of deer hide, heavy necklaces, pendants, 
earplugs, wristlets and anklets of jade — each in his bravest display. 
Naked male slaves stood about the council chamber with lighted 
torches of fat pine in their hands, for the hour of dawn had not yet 
come, and these cast a fitful light over the company. Outside on the 
terrace, in front of the palace, the musicians were assembled with 
long, wooden drums, rattles and flageolets. 



260 



American Indian Life 



High on the topmost point of the roof of the sanctuary of Itzamna 
stood a priest scanning the eastern horizon for the first sign of the 
orb of day. As dawn approached, the multitude stirred faintly 
and with common consent all eyes turned to the portals of the 
palace. Slaves with short staves were seen to open a passage through 
the crowd and stand on either side to keep the way cleared. 
Suddenly a piercing cry falls from above. "Lo, the Lord of Day 
cometh." The musicians strike up, and move in ordered rank down 
the terrace stairway and across the plaza. First come temple boys 
with brooms, sweeping the way, followed by others swinging braziers 
of incense from which clouds of heavy, black, aromatic smoke wreath 
upward. Next appear the temple chanters clad in white, singing 
an ode of welcome to the Lord of Day; next, a troop of the palace 
guard in quilted cotton armor, armed with stone-pointed javelins 
and shields of skin. Following these are the lords of the dependent 
towns and villages, and the higher civil officers of the state; these 
last, with their gorgeous cloaks of featherwork, furnishing the bright- 
est spot of color in the procession. Next are the lower orders of the 
priesthood of Itzamna, a long file of white-robed figures moving 
slowly forward. 

Now Ahcuitok Chan leaves the palace surrounded by the higher 
priestly dignitaries. He is magnificently dressed, a cloak of rich 
featherwork hanging from his shoulders and falling over the jaguar 
skin draped around his body. His jade necklace is a work of art, 
beautifully carved human heads hanging in front and back, and over 
each shoulder. Delicate, tendril-like feathers of the quetzal, the 
royal emblem, hang from a brilliantly painted wooden helmet carved 
to represent a serpent head, the patronymic of his family, Chan. 
Indeed he wears all the insignia of the True Man save only the 
Double-headed Ceremonial Bar which ancient practice decrees may 
only be borne by the True Man himself. Follows last the simply 
clad boy of seventeen in whose honor all have assembled. 

The procession moves slowly across the plaza and ascends the steep 
stairway to the sanctuary of Itzamna above. The musicians, 
sweepers, incensers and chanters take positions on either side of the 
temple doorway on the summit of the pyramid, now bathed in the 
first rays of the rising sun. The soldiers form a double cordon on 
each side of the stairway from bottom to top, between which the rest 



The True Man of His People 



261 



of the procession passes, dividing at the top and arranging itself on 
either side of the doorway. Even Ahcuitok waits at the entrance 
for his nephew, and when the boy has at last reached the summit, he 
takes his hand and leads him within, followed only by the highest 
officers and priests. 

The crowd now dispersed since nothing visible to the eye of the 
common folk would be going forward until the close of the after- 
noon, although within the sanctuary itself the ceremony would be 
continued all day. When the higher officers of the state had all 
assembled in the outer corridor of the temple, Ahcuitok Chan, still 
leading his nephew by the hand, approached the curtain guarding 
the sanctuary, and drew it aside, at the same time motioning the boy 
to enter. After Holon Chan had passed within, Ahcuitok Chan let 
the curtain fall behind him and seated himself on his haunches out- 
side the doorway, all the others arranging themselves about the cham- 
ber in the same position. 

Now followed a long and wearisome vigil both for those without 
the curtain and for the hungry tired boy within. Etiquette pro- 
scribed conversation lest it should interrupt the devotions of the 
suppliant in the sanctuary, and time hung heavy, as the hours dragged 
by. 

All day long Holon Chan prayed to his father Itzamna in the semi- 
obscurity of the holy place, leaving his orisons only long enough to 
replenish the brazier with little balls of incense or quench his thirst 
from a bowl of water by the door. He had now fasted so long that 
he was light-headed, and it seemed to him that at times the wooden 
image of the god smiled down upon him, even answered his prayers 
for guidance and gave him counsel ; at least so he told his uncle when 
the latter came to fetch him for the investiture an hour before sun- 
set. But this one was a wise old man, well acquainted with the 
frailty of the flesh and the hallucinations born of an empty stom- 
ach, and he only nodded wisely, and did not press for further par- 
ticulars. 

In the outer corridor all was astir for the final act of the great 
drama. As Holon Chan stepped out of the sanctuary all prostrated 
themselves in obeisance. A priest now stepped forward, and painted 
his legs, arms and torso with a bright red pigment, encircling his eyes 
with a heavy band of the same color, and adding a large red daub to 



262 



American Indian Life 



each cheek. His plain breechclout was now removed, and a heavily 
embroidered one wound around his loins instead. Next anklets and 
wristlets of jade were fastened around his ankles and wrists, and a 
heavy collar of the same material hung about his neck. This was 
richly embellished with four large medallions of jade, one in front, 
one behind, and one over each shoulder, beautifully carved to repre- 
sent the human face; a fringe of smaller jade heads hung from the 
collar. Square jade ear-plugs were fitted into the lobes of his ears, 
and a jade ring slipped on his ringer. These were, in truth, the state 
jewels; precious material gathered by succeeding generations of True 
Men to adorn their own persons. 

A magnificent jaguar skin, tawny orange-red dappled with rosettes 
of black, was hung from his shoulders, the long tail dragging on the 
ground. Finally the serpent crown was placed upon his head. This 
was an ornate affair of cedar carved to represent the head of a snake 
with widely distended mouth. It was painted a brilliant green, the 
mouth being red; the eyes were formed by two pieces of highly pol- 
ished, jet-black obsidian, the teeth being inset pieces of white shell. 
From the head of the snake rose a shower of quetzal plumes, the tail 
feathers of an hundred of these rare tropical birds, obtained with in- 
finite hardships from the cold mountain ranges far to the South. 
These delicate tendrils of plumage floated down behind the boy, and 
as the evening breeze caught them, swirled around him, enveloping 
his body in a mist of translucent green. 

The hour of sunset was at last drawing near. The priest on the 
roof of the temple above shouted down a warning that the Lord of 
the Day was nearing the horizon. The Great Plaza and its surround- 
ing terraces had, in the meantime, filled with people; every pyramid- 
stairway and summit thronged with spectators. A body of priests 
had taken positions by the thatched fence around the monument, 
ready to fell it at the instant of sunset. All the officers of state and 
the priests, including Ahcuitok Chan, indeed all save only Holon 
Chan himself passed out of the temple, and arranged themselves on 
either side of the doorway. Before Ahcuitok Chan, stood two priests 
supporting a brilliantly painted wooden staff; one end carved to 
represent the Sun God, the other end, the Rain God, the whole shaft 
being hung with green feathers. This was the Double-headed 
Ceremonial Bar, the emblem of supreme authority of the state, only to 



The True Man of His People 263 

be carried by the True Man. Throughout his regency even Ahcuitok 
Chan had never used this insignia of the highest office. 

The sun was now all but touching the horizon; the watcher above 
uttered a piercing cry, and the multitude below stiffened to attention. 
Sixty silent seconds passed and then the watching priest chanted: 
"Lo, the Lord of Day passeth." Suddenly from the temple door- 
way into the full radiance of the setting sun, now gilding the brilliant 
company gathered on the pyramid's summit, stepped the new ruler, 
resplendent in the flashing green of jade against his crimson body, 
his cloak of glossy jaguar skin gleaming in the sun, his form swathed 
in a shimmering mist of green, the swirling tendrils of quetzal hang- 
ing from his headdress. 

A mighty roar of acclaim loosed itself from the spectators below. 
The drums on the summit pealed a roll of welcome. At the same 
instant the fence of thatch around the monument was beaten to the 
ground; the sun, striking at last fair upon its front, made glow every 
detail of carving. From the True Man above, to his exact counter- 
part sculptured on the front of the newly unveiled monument below, 
every eye turned and turned again. The mighty cheer continued. 
The chosen of Itzamna and Yum Kax, he who would bring back 
fertility to their sterile fields, was at last proclaimed ruler. Ahcui- 
tok Chan took the Ceremonial Bar from the waiting priests and, 
advancing to his nephew, placed it horizontally in his outstretched 
arms: "Hail, Ah Holon Chan, son of Ahmeket Chan! I invest thee 
with the rank of True Man of Tikal, and may the Great Itzamna 
grant thee long life, and to thy people prosperity everlasting!" 

Ah Holon Chan, no longer a boy, and now entitled to a man's 
designation (the male prefix Ah) advanced to the edge of the pyr- 
amid and, raising the Ceremonial Bar, signaled for silence. A pro- 
found hush fell upon the multitude. 

"Oh People of my blood, my single purpose, my single thought 
from this moment henceforth till the Father of Heaven, Great Itz- 
amna, calls me hence, shall be your welfare. May the Lord of 
Life guide me through the perils which beset our race, and endow me 
with wisdom to rule you justly and well, and above all to find thai- 
way which once again will bring prosperity and abundance to our 
failing fields. Oh People of my blood, accept this my solemn vow 
of consecration to your service." 



264 American Indian Life 

The sun had set, a rosy afterglow enveloped the boy in a haze 
of mysterious light. It seemed, to the breathless thousands in the 
plaza below, as though the Lord of Life were actually infusing the 
new ruler with that wisdom for which he had so earnestly prayed. 
Profound silence reigned. Swiftly the twilight fell. A few stars 
began to twinkle through the sky. At last in the gathering gloom the 
boy was seen to turn and pass within the temple. And then the 
multitude began to melt away until the court was empty. . . . 

Sylvanus G. Morley 



The Toltec Architect of Chichen Itza 



THE battle is over, the once glorious Chichen Itza has fallen and all 
because of the love of a woman. Hunac-eel, the king of Mayapan, 
the conqueror, is being borne into the ruined city. There are no 
shouts of welcome, no crowds gathered on the tops of such buildings 
as have escaped destruction. Many of the former citizens have been 
killed, others are held prisoners, later to be enslaved, and still others 
have fled far to the southwards to find a resting place in Peten Itza. 

Chac-xib-chac, the king of Chichen Itza, had fallen on the field of 
battle, fighting for his bride. She was also of noble lineage and it 
was she whom Hunac-eel had dared to desire, although she was the 
bride of his friend and ally in the famous League of Mayapan which 
now was to be disrupted after an existence of two hundred years. 

The wedding of Chac-xib-chac and Tibil had been marked by the 
pomp and luxury customary in royal marriages of the Mayas. There 
had been games and dancing, feasting and song. The kings of May- 
apan, Uxmal, Izamal and the other kingdoms of Yucatan, had been 
present. Chichen was in gala dress. The festivities were at their 
height when, without warning, Hunac-eel and his followers from 
Mayapan rushed up the broad but steep stairway of the royal res- 
idence and burst into the very chamber of Chac-xib-chac and his 
bride. His retainers, worn out by too much feasting, had made but 
a feeble resistance. Hunac-eel fled with the reluctant bride to his 
home at Mayapan. 

There followed a long and devastating war. Chac-xib-chac had 
been able to induce all the surrounding kingdoms except that of the 
Xius to join his forces. The Xius alone remained neutral. Hunac- 
eel, on seeing the hosts against him, had called to his aid a body of 
Mexican warriors who happened to be in Tabasco. The war raged 
for many years. Izamal was conquered, and one after another of the 
famous cities fell into the power of Hunac-eel and his foreign allies. 
Finally he attacked Chichen itself, killed Chac-xib-chac, and, aided 
by the novel machines of war of the Mexicans, sacked the city. 

265 



266 



American Indian Life 



And now, the conqueror was making his triumphal entry. His 
son, also the son of Tibil, accompanied him, a youth just arriving at 
manhood. There was also in the train of Hunac-eel a young 
Mexican named Pantemitl. Pantemitl had been trained as a warrior, 
but his activities had taken a more peaceful turn. He had had a 
minor part in the erection of the great Temple of the Sun, at 
Teotihuacan in his homeland. Hunac-eel had recognized the young 
man's abilities as an artist and architect; he was just such a man as 
Hunac-eel needed in order to carry out his plan of building a greater 
and more glorious Chichen. 

Hunac-eel soon returned to Mayapan, leaving behind him Taxcal, 
his son, and installing a Governor to rule the city. 

Taxcal and Pantemitl, the young architect, soon became the great- 
est of friends. Pantemitl was engaged in building a wonderful 
temple, erected on a high pyramid, with stairways on the four sides. 
He had brought with him the ideas of his country which were new 
to Yucatan. He had carvings of the feathered serpent made for the 
entrance to the temple and for one of the great stone stairways. The 
people of Chichen marveled at the art of the foreign country which 
was blossoming in their city. 

Among the inhabitants, of whom many were serving as slaves 
to the usurpers, was a worker in jade. The beauty of his carvings 
had brought him renown. His craftsmanship was unequalled in all 
the country. It was he who was called upon to furnish all the head 
and breast ornaments and beads, for the regalia of those who imper- 
sonated the gods of the Mayas in the festivals which came every 
twenty days. With his daughter the old jade worker lived in a 
thatched hut on the outskirts of the city. The girl was beautiful. 
Her frame was small, and she had bright brown eyes with features 
sharp and finely chiselled. There was a subtle refinement about her 
which is common even to-day to all Maya women, especially when 
they are young. Nicte, the Flower, was a dutiful daughter and when 
she was not grinding maize she liked to spend her time sharpening 
the stone tools, and collecting the reeds needed by her father in his 
jade work. Like the other women, she took little part in the great 
religious spectacles performed so frequently in the temples. And 
now more than ever her father kept her at home, for he feared lest 
by chance she be selected as an offering to the new gods, introduced 



/ 



The Toltec Architect of Chichen Itza 



267 



by the Toltecs who had come to the city in the armies of Hunac-eel. 
However her beauty attracted the attention of Pantemitl when he 
came to visit her father, who was making the jade and obsidian eyes 
for the many figures of the feathered serpent set up by the young 
artist. 

Pantemitl was about to complete a wonderful Ball Court at 
Chichen, for the game of tlachtli which formed a part of the religious 
life of the Mexicans. The people of Chichen looked with favor at 
the introduction of this game into their city, as they were fond of 
spectacles. The court consisted of two massive and parallel walls of 
masonry. Near the top and at the center of each wall there projected 
a stone ring which was carved with the feathered serpent design. But 
the court itself was a very small part of the whole undertaking. There 
were two beautiful temples at either end, and the most wonderful of 
all buildings on the top and at the end of one of the walls. The out- 
side was decorated with friezes of tigers alternating with shields. 
The portico of the building was borne by two serpent columns with 
a stone altar between, consisting of fifteen carved and painted human 
figures, supporting in their upturned hands a flat stone as a table. 
The stone jambs of the doorway were carved with warriors and the 
carved wooden lintel had the Sun God upon it. Inside the temple it- 
self Pantemitl painted the scenes of the battles of Hunac-eel and his 
enemies. He introduced into this fresco also many scenes of domes- 
tic life; he had even dared to paint in women and the very house of 
Nicte. This was sacrilegious according to the ideas of Taxcal who 
believed that women should not be represented in a temple of the 
gods, as they had no part to play in the religion of his fathers. 

Now Taxcal, too, had seen Nicte and had begun to covet her. 
His friendship for Pantemitl had given place to rivalry and bitter 
enmity. The quarrel had reached the ears of the Governor of 
Chichen who was forced to take cognizance of it as it was interfering 
with the completion of the architectural work. The Governor's 
position was difficult. He feared the wrath of the king and yet he 
hesitated to take the side of Taxcal as the people had made Pantemitl, 
the Toltec, a hero on account of the part he was playing in rebuild- 
ing their city. Besides, the Governor had learned that Hunac-eel 
was being surrounded in his city by the Cocomes, descendants of the 
Itzas themselves. As these people were conquering everything be 
fore them, perhaps Hunac-eel was no longer to be feared. 



268 



American Indian Life 



The decision of the Governor was to let the gods solve the outcome 
of the quarrel. He ordered the two rivals to play the first game of 
tlachtli in the inauguration of the new court. The gods of the Ball 
Court would determine the victory; their solution would be a just 
one. It was decided, therefore, that the winner of the game could 
claim the jade worker's daughter as his prize. The other should be 
given to the gods, his heart cut out and offered to their images. This 
practice, so common in Mexico, was comparatively unknown in 
Yucatan. Here was a chance, thought the Governor, of providing 
a worthy sacrifice to the new gods. 

Each youth eagerly accepted the wager of gaming for their gods 
and Nicte. As for Nicte, she was virtually a slave, her choice in the 
matter played no part. And yet she was inclined strongly toward 
the prince, a man of her own race, as against Pantemitl, the foreigner. 

The day dawned for the inauguration of the Ball Court. News 
had gone out of the unusual circumstances connected with the first 
game. People were coming from all the surrounding towns, even 
from Itzamal, many leagues distant. The usual stakes were mantles, 
gold, and jade ornaments, but sometimes men played themselves 
into slavery. To-day the loser is to give his very life. The crowd 
line the top of the massive walls, the Governor and his suite sit in the 
portico of the Temple of the Tigers, other dignitaries fill the two 
small temples at either end. Sacrifices are made to the gods of the 
Ball Court in these three temples. There are songs and dances in 
the court itself, by gayly dressed youths. Priests in the superb 
regalia of their offices are entering the enclosure in solemn proces- 
sion. Prayers are offered and the ball is thrown about the court four 
times in the direction of the four points of the compass. 

The two young men, each with five friends as fellow plavers, enter 
the court. A hush falls on the multitude, followed by a murmur of 
admiration when they see the stalwart youths, their bodies glistening 
with paint, and their breechclouts covered with gold and jade orna- 
ments. Pantemitl is the favorite in the betting, as he it is who has 
caused Chichen to rise again as a city second to none in the whole 
peninsula. Taxcal and his players have the rubber ball, bouncing it 
steadily down the court towards the ring of their adversaries. 

The ball hovers a moment at the hole but falls back again. It 
lands squarely on the hip of Pantemitl, who leaps high into the air to 
receive it. He and his fellow players have had long practice with 



The Toltec Architect of Chichen Itza 269 



the game in Mexico and this fact now begins to show itself. Pante- 
mitl bounces the ball to a companion, and from one to the other it 
quickly passes until he finally receives it again, directly in front of 
the ring of his opponents. With great dexterity he throws it squarely 
through the hole and the game is ended. 

According to the rules, the mantles of the spectators belonged to 
the victor but on this occasion none rushed from the court. All were 
preoccupied with the tragic ending of the game. For Taxcal had 
fallen exhausted at the feet of Pantemitl who raised him and carried 
him to the Tiger Temple. Here the Governor received them. Tax- 
cal's father was no longer to be feared, as word had come that he had 
been driven out of his city by the Cocomes. By sacrificing the son of 
Hunac-eel the Governor realizes that he will curry favor with the new 
conquerors of Mayapan. 

The Governor decides, therefore, to have the sacrifice at once. 
Priests are dispatched to prepare for the ceremony in the portico of 
the famous Pyramid Temple, hardly a stone's throw from the Ball 
Court. The sacrificial stone is ready to receive its offering, and Tax- 
cal is a youth without a blemish, as demanded by the gods. Resist- 
less, he allows himself to be arrayed in the magnificent robes of 
sacrifice. He is regaled with incense from vases of burning copal, 
and is almost buried in flowers. Pages follow him in the procession 
of priests as they wind their way up the hundred steps of the pyramid. 
According to Mexican custom, believed to be the impersonation of 
a god, he is treated with all possible honor and respect. 

At the top of the staircase, relinquishing his flowers and his mantles, 
he is received by six priests with locks matted with the blood of 
previous victims, their ears hanging in long strips where they have 
been cut as acts of penance. Led to the sacrificial stone, he is thrown 
on his back upon it. Five priests hold his arms and legs while the 
sixth, clad in a scarlet mantle, dexterously opens his breast with the 
famous sacrificial knife, its wooden handle carved with the inter- 
twined bodies of two serpents. Inserting his hand into the wound, 
he tears out the palpitating heart. Holding it first toward the setting 
sun, he casts it at the feet of the image of the god to whom the temple 
is dedicated. 

When Pantemitl next made his way to the jade maker's hut he 
heard from a distance singing and wailing, and was surprised to see 



270 



American. Indian Life 



crowds of people gathered. Presently he learned with horror that 
his beloved Nicte had offered herself for sacrifice. She had an- 
nounced that she too would die, a sacrifice to the gods, in the sacred 
well of the Itzas. 

Priests were already preparing the ceremonies. The sixty days 
of fasting had begun. Gifts and incense were brought and Nicte, 
lying on her couch, was being dressed in white robes and garlanded 
with flowers. In despair and contrition, Pantemitl spent the time in 
his Tiger Temple, painting over the door of the frescoed chamber 
the scene of the sacrifice of his rival. In the chamber behind the 
temple he carved scenes of warriors and civilians paying homage to 
the God of the Feathered Serpent. These he hoped would find favor 
with the gods and free him from his unhappy feelings. 

The Cenote of Sacrifice, a huge natural well, was situated only 
a short distance from the temple which had been the scene of the 
death of Taxcal. Into the cenote the most precious possessions of 
the people were thrown as offerings to the gods. Virgins were con- 
sidered especially welcome to the gods and the dark waters, three 
score feet from the surface, held many victims. 

At the break of the sixtieth day, the procession starts from the 
house of the jade cutter. Numberless bowls of copal incense, in- 
crusted with amulets, are burned, carved wooden staffs, with heads 
made of stone mosaics or covered with gold masks, are being carried 
by the priests, all to be thrown into the dark waters. The maiden 
herself is dressed in finely woven textiles, heavily ornamented with 
golden bells and jade beads. She wears on her breast a gold plaque 
on which the sacrifice of her lover is depicted. Nicte is to die for 
the love of Taxcal, but to all the others it is an act of supreme de- 
votion to the gods. 

The procession winds its way to the Great Pyramid and from 
there a broad avenue, lined with images, leads to the Cenote of 
Sacrifice. As the band of worshipers are encircling the holy well, 
the priests with the maiden take their places in the small temple 
directly at the brink. More incense is burned and the precious 
offerings are thrown into the water, with prayers and songs in praise 
of the gods of the cenote. In the silence which follows, the main 
actors reach the roof of the temple whence, in a few moments, the 
maiden is cast into the depths beneath. As the ripples widen out 



The Toltec Architect of Chichen Itza 271 

to the edges of the great pool, prayers are chanted supplicating the 
gods to receive graciously the offering. . . . 

Worn out with work and with sorrow, Pantemitl could stand 
the strain no longer, and he sickened and died. Just before his 
death he completed a small replica of the Pyramid Temple planned 
to receive the ashes of the poor queen, the mother of Taxcal, Tibil, 
who had requested that she be buried in the city of her fathers. 

The death of Pantemitl cast the city into mourning. His great 
achievements had made of him a hero. His masterpiece, the Pyra- 
mid Tomb, was completed, and the people demanded that this 
beautiful temple with its crypt be made the tomb of its architect. 
Offerings from all covered the pyre on which his body was burned. 
His last wish was that the ashes of Taxcal should be mingled with 
his. . . . The final rite is about to begin. A beautiful alabaster 
jar, one of the most precious possessions of the city, a gift from a 
visiting monarch from a distant country, is carried in the procession 
of priests to the top of the Pyramid Tomb. It holds the ashes of 
Pantemitl and of Taxcal. Reverently the vase, surrounded by offer- 
ings of jade, is lowered from the floor of the temple through the 
stone-lined shaft until it rests in the natural chamber below the 
mound. 

Alfred M. Tozzer 



Wixi of the Shellmound People 



ON THE BEACH 

"HERE'S another! Here's another ! Here's another!" 

It is the excited voice of a naked, gesticulating youngster, little 
more than three years old, who is pointing to a tiny hole in the smooth 
surface of the tide beach at his feet. 

"Yes, yes, child, I am coming," is the reply, in soft, affectionate 
tones, by a woman a few steps away. 

"But I am hungry, I am hungry," comes the insistent, half- 
petulant voice. 

"Well, you can't have any clams now, you know. Mark the one 
you have and run along to find some more. Soon we shall go home." 

At this the child stoops unsteadily and with a rough, pointed 
splinter of bone draws a circle around the hole, then patters away 
along the wet beach. 

Presently his mother comes forward, with a rough basket in one 
hand and a short, stout, pointed stick in the other. She is bare- 
footed and bareheaded. Her only garment is a sort of skirt made 
of loose bark strands, reaching from the waist to the knees. Her 
heavy, glistening, black hair is fastened in two locks hanging down 
in front, partially covering her breasts. Her complexion, a shade 
darker than that of the child, is the color of a smoked, reddish brick 
or of a certain shade of Oriental bronze. Scarcely more than twenty 
years old, she has a fine, comely figure. 

Having reached the spot indicated by the child, the young woman 
sets the basket down. Then, grasping the stick with both hands, 
she drives it into the firm beach mud and with a single, deft, prying 
motion brings to the surface a good-sized clam. She picks it up, 
throws it into the partly filled basket, and proceeds a few steps to 
where the child is calling her anew. 

Similar scenes are being enacted on every hand. Women and 
children, numbering close to one hundred in all, are scattered along 
the beach for nearly half a mile; a hundred yards or so beyond there 

273 



274 American Indian Life 

is another, somewhat smaller group. In both groups the women 
and older children are busy with the digging-stick, while the younger 
children run about over the beach locating the clams. Presently 
there is a curious splash near the edge of the receding waters. The 
splash is repeated once or twice and with it a chorus of voices rings 
out. 

"Wixi! Wixi!" (Stingaree! Stingaree!) 

A dozen or so half-grown children come running from different 
directions, all shouting vehemently, "He's mine ! He's mine ! I saw 
him first! I saw him first!" 

There is nothing actually to be seen, except perhaps a small area 
immediately off shore where the water is unusually muddy. Into the 
water the children rush, keeping clear of the roiled spot, and when 
ranged partly around it on the sea side, they begin to poke into it with 
their sticks. Very soon there is another violent splash and a large, 
monstrous looking creature is seen to lift itself almost bodily out of 
the shallow water. 

"Wixi! Wixi! We've got you!" shouts the chorus. "We've 

got you!" 

The steadily receding water soon reveals the cause of the excite- 
ment— an extra large eagle ray, a kind of flat-fish, in outline some- 
thing like an immense butterfly, plus a long whip-like tail, near the 
root of which appears a sharply-pronged, bony excrescence which 
can inflict a severe wound. Wixi is an ugly fellow, and as he lies 
there in two or three inches of water, flopping spasmodically, lashing 
his tail viciously from side to side, the children plant their sticks 
firmly in the ground, making a sort of fence around him, while they 
stand back out of reach. But, the moment the monster subsides, 
all pound and punch with their sticks, screaming and carrying on 
like a pack of fighting dogs. Finally, the oldest of the children, 
a girl of ten or eleven, manages to insert her digging-stick in the 
creature's eye. A few violent lashings, and the ray lies still. 

The girl remains leaning on the stick, holding the great fish firmly 
transfixed. The other children fall over each other in a scramble to 
get near it. All seek to pierce the dead body with their sticks and 
to pull it away. But their implements are too weak and dull. Some 
grasp with their fingers at the slimy thing, but to no avail. The girl 
stands unmoved. 



Wixi of the Shellmound People 



275 



In their rage some of the children suddenly turn upon her. In 
an effort to defend herself, she lets go her stick, and at the same 
moment the big ray is pulled away, but not by any of the original 
claimants. During the tumult a boy of thirteen or fourteen had 
approached unnoticed from the larger group of clam gatherers, and 
had wound the tail of the ray two or three times around his hand. 
Now when the girl's hold on the stick is released, he jerks the ray 
away and starts to run as fast as his legs can carry him toward his 
own people, the body of the big fish dragging behind him over the 
slippery mud. 

There is a tremendous uproar. Some of the children attempt to 
follow, but they are soon outdistanced. The girl who killed the ray, 
finally realizing what has happened, bursts out: "You took my wixi! 
You took my wixi ! You — wixi! You — !" Her voice chokes with 
sobs. But her epithet is taken up by a chorus of voices in both groups 
of clam diggers, those of Kawina and those of Akalan: "You wixi! 
You wixi !" 

But the boy pays no heed. When he reaches the shore proper, 
he winds the ray's tail a few more times around his hand, swings the 
immense body over his shoulders, and disappears among the marsh 
weeds in the direction of his home. 

Wixi ! Wixi ! Thus the boy is nicknamed for life. 

AT BREAKFAST 

It is still early morning on San Francisco Bay. The tide is going 
out, and the sun, just topping the eastern hills, is reflected in the 
placid waters as in a great oval mirror. On the horizon beyond the 
expanse of the waters of the bay, the sunlight glitters on the snowy 
summit of Mt. Hamilton; to the left, looms the hazy outline of Mt. 
Diablo; and to the right, glorious in the clear sunlight, stands green- 
clad Mt. Tamalpais, guarding the entrance to the broad channel 
heading north into San Pablo Bay. The surface of the channel is 
slightly choppy, because here passes out to sea the collected volume 
of the great rivers that drain the interior mountains and valleys. The 
shore of the bay is low and marshy, lying in sweeping curves. Along 
these curves faint blue smokes rise at intervals against the shadowy 



276 



American Indian Life 



background of the hills. These smokes mark settlements, of which 
there are along the entire bay shore about two hundred, strung like 
pearls on a necklace. 

In one of the curving arms of the bay, smoke ascends from a gray- 
ish spot in the marshland, some three hundred yards back of the shore 
line. It is the village of Kawina. Four miles farther east, directly 
on the water front, lies the village of Akalan. Beyond that 
the shore line turns, and other settlements hug the shore at every 
point where a fresh water streamlet empties into the bay. 

The clam diggers are straggling along the beach toward home. A 
number of young men from Akalan have gone to the head of the cove 
a few rods away. They are engaged in dragging a dozen or more 
curiously shaped bundles of dried tule-rushes down the muddy slope 
to the tide channel, which drains the extensive marshes ranging along 
the entire east base of the potrero. When the clam gatherers left 
home the channel was dry, but the tide already is fast returning and 
the breakfast bringers have to be assisted across. 

It is a lively, not to say noisy, occasion. The older children glide 
down the slippery mud into the water, and flounder across amidst 
laughter and shouting. Only the women with their baskets, and the 
smaller children cross by ferry; for these tule bundles are boats or, 
rather, floats. Some of them carry only from four to six persons, 
others as many as fifteen. The ferrying proceeds rather slowly, to 
the lively chatter of the women. The children have run on ahead, 
up the grassy incline to the village. 

The grass suddenly ceases at the foot of a blackish eminence on 
which the village stands. The eminence is about twenty feet high 
and of an irregular contour, the slope in places being gradual, in 
others steep, while the top is roughly flattened. On approaching 
nearer, the whole mound-like structure appears to be composed of 
the shells of clams, mussels, and oysters. There is an occasional 
brightly colored abalone shell. Here and there are scattered pairs 
of deer antlers, and the wing bones of ducks, geese, and other birds 
with feathers still attached. Crushed or broken bones of various ani- 
mals lie everywhere. And there are fish bones. Flies are swarming 
about; the odor is far from enticing. Closer inspection would reveal 
the presence of ashes and charcoal, as well as a goodly number of 
bowlders and pebbles of crackly surface. The impression is that 



Wixi of the Shellmound People 277 

of a huge ash pile or refuse heap. And yet on top of it all stands 
the village! 

The village is an irregularly grouped cluster of about thirty hive- 
shaped huts, with openings facing either south or east. The huts 
themselves are constructed on a framework of slender poles set in 
circles from twelve to sixteen feet in diameter, the top ends being 
bent together and intertwined some eight or nine feet above the 
ground. Over this is placed a layer of twigs and grass, and this again 
is covered with earth and sod. Only the top is left open for the exit 
of smoke. This morning, however, the fires are out in front of the 
doors, each family having its own. 

A number of fair-sized bowlders form a ring around the edge of 
the dying embers. Ranged about each of these circles, within reach- 
ing distance, are seated the members of the family. Even the older 
men, who do not condescend often to eat with the women and 
children, are present. They are mostly grizzled, ill-kempt, sluggish 
looking fellows, who have barely had time to rub the sleep out of 
their eyes. Through the rainy winter months they have been com- 
paratively inactive, the women have been doing the work; but now it 
is April and the warmth of spring is bringing them out of their 
hibernation. Soon they will be off for the entire summer, and fall 
to leading an active life among the hills where food is not so easily 
obtained as it is on the bay shore, though it can be had in greater 
variety if all hands, including the men, make the effort. 

The clams brought in from the beach are being distributed, and 
the older folk place them, just as they are, on the hot rocks around 
the fire. The smaller children watch intently and yet uneasily, 
having repeatedly been scolded for poking their fingers against the 
sizzling shellfish lying nearest on the rocks. Suddenly some of the 
clams open up, ready to eat. They have been cooked in the most 
admirable fashion in their own juice. In the group around the fire, 
next to one of the rear huts, are seated a very old man, a middle-aged 
woman, two children, and a half-grown boy. It is the boy Wixi, 
who has just proposed to his mother to boil some of the fish. 

"Boiled fish! Boiled fish! Who ever heard of boiled fish?" 
blurts out the old man in a cracked voice. He is blind, or nearly so. 
judging from his dull, deeply sunken eyes. His hair, as well as 
his straggly beard, is white, and his face and neck are seamed and 



278 



American Indian Life 



wrinkly, suggestive of tanned alligator skin. His body is thin and 
frail, his hands shaking. 

"Well, fish could be boiled," Wixi retorts. "You boil acorn meal 
and you boil buckeye meal and you boil lots of things. Why 
couldn't you boil fish?" 

"Why couldn't you boil fish? Why couldn't you boil fish?" the 
old man screams, his whole frame trembling. "You couldn't boil 
fish because — because nobody ever did such a thing! Chakalli 
didn't tell us to boil fish." 

This sort of dispute has been an almost daily occurrence for many 
moons, since the time of the boy's initiation ceremony, when he began 
to assume the responsibilities of manhood. His father, as Wixi 
would say, is away. A shaman, he had failed to cure the poisoned 
wound of a certain chief, and he had been quietly waylaid on the 
trail. Since then, his family had had to suffer partial disgrace. 

That was some years ago, and the boy, thrown thus early upon 
his own resources, had learned through stress of circumstances to 
practice a number of new devices. He discovered that by suspend- 
ing a grass mat in a vertical position by means of an upright stick 
to serve as a support, he was able alone to sail his tule float speedily 
before the wind. Other young men would have copied his device, 
only they had elders in direct authority and were prevented. But 
Wixi, being already something of an outcast in the village, was 
suffered to do much as he pleased, his feeble old Grandfather being 
in no position to check him. 

On this occasion, Wixi, instead of arguing with the old man, dips 
his hands quickly into a basket standing in a slight hollow, well away 
from the fire, and brings out four or five small rocks dripping with 
water. He throws them to one side, and by means of a couple of 
sticks, pulls several rocks out of the fire and drops them, one by one, 
into the basket, half full of water. There is a momentary splutter 
and rise of steam, and then the water in the basket begins to boil. 
Wixi places several chunks of the stingaree in the boiling water, 
and in a short time is eating boiled fish. 

DRAKE PASSES 

The fires have flashed more than once from mountain to mountain 
and have been answered not only by Akalan, but by every one of the 



Wixi of the Shellmound People 279 

two hundred settlements on the bay shore. The principal event, 
one for which no predetermined signal existed, was the passage 
along the California coast of the Golden Hind, early in the summer 
of 1579. The great captain, Sir Francis Drake, did not see the 
Golden Gate because of the heavy fog, but the watchers on Mt. 
Tamalpais saw his ship and did their duty as best they knew. 
Before evening of that day, every dweller on the bay shore (those 
on the coast could see for themselves) understood that Wasaka, the 
Eagle who brought the original fire to the Mutsun people while they 
yet lived in the far North, had passed by. 

Three or four weeks later, when the vessel returned from the 
North, and was drawn ashore for repairs within the shelter of Point 
Reyes, the signals were revised as a result of messages brought to 
Tamalpais by runners from the Tamalanos, otherwise known as the 
"peaked-house" people, who lived directly at Drake's landing place. 
This time the Mutsunes were informed that it was not Wasaka, but 
the great Chakalli himself. Chakalli, the "Man Above." or the 
"Great One Above," was much in their thoughts, but to have him 
visit was an event foreboding ill. Nearly every one wished to flee 
from his presence. As it turned out, the visitor conducted himself 
peaceably and in due course went away, leaving few of the Mutsunes 
any the wiser. 

Drake's Bay, as it happened, lay in the country of the Miwok 
people, who spoke a different tongue from the Mutsunes and who, 
besides, were ordinarily jealous of their territorial rights. But a 
few of the Mutsunes had gone around by sea, Wixi among them. 
Wixi was the only one from Akalan who had gone, and the adven- 
ture proved a turning point in his life. He came back somewhat 
of a hero, at least in the eyes of those of his own age, the older men 
holding aloof. Wixi had learned many wonderful things during 
his few days' sojourn with the bearded white men, among them that 
other people used sails to drive their boats. If any doubted the 
story that he told, he had but to exhibit the proofs: a small mirror, 
a couple of strings of colored glass beads, a square of red cloth, 
and, above all, a truly marvelous thing, a knife of metal. These 
things were given Wixi by the great captain himself, in the general 
exchange of presents that followed one of the Indian dancing 
ceremonies that we read of in Drake's own log book. 



280 



American Indian Life 



IN THE COUNCIL LODGE 

In early manhood Wixi had become fairly conscious of his own 
strength and skill, as well as of his power to direct and improve 
the life of his people. He had decided, however, to wait his time. 
The old men would slowly give way or would "disappear." Why 
quarrel? Besides, it was not his nature to hurry. His patience was 
shown in still another way, namely, by the fact that he was not yet 
married. According to custom his parents should have chosen and 
purchased a wife for him; but, having no parents, or at least only a 
mother who accepted his assistance and submitted to his authority, the 
matter was left largely to himself. He had indeed performed the 
acts that entitled him to a wife. That is, he had carried presents of 
food, and skins for clothing to the door of the girl he had chosen, and 
she had silently accepted them. Still he did not bring her home, be- 
cause she was not acceptable in his own village, because she belonged 
to the neighboring village of Kawina. She was none other than 
the girl to whom he owed his name, the girl from whom he had 
wrested the stingaree. 

Now the people of Kawina were not friends of the people of 
Akalan. Nevertheless, Wixi had met Mahudah again and again, 
both on the beach and in the hill country, and, somehow, they had 
settled their quarrel and were friends. 

Wixi had waited and yet, contrary to his expectations, the senti- 
ment of his village people continued to harden against him. True, 
more and more power and authority fell to him, but the stern oppo- 
sition of the old men was doing its work. Admired though he was 
by the younger generation, none dared to stand by him openly. He 
was constantly meeting the old men in council and they listened 
respectfully enough to his words, but stood solidly against him when- 
ever he suggested departure from the ways of old. 

One night in the council lodge at Akalan, the small blaze in the 
centre reveals Wixi and about a dozen of the old men looking 
unusually stern and solemn. The pipe is passing around the circle 
and the War Chief— the youngest man present, barring Wixi— is 
stating the purpose of the meeting. 

"For many winters," he is saying, his eyes averted to the roof, 



Wixi of the Shellmound People 



281 



"for many winters we have all been troubled about the future of 
our tribe. We have not known what to do. The white man has 
come to the land. We thought first he was Wasaka, and later that 
he was Chakalli. But he is instead a powerful enemy. He has 
done us no harm. That is good. He is killing our enemies, the 
Longhairs beyond the Mutsun waters to the South. That is good, 
too. He has taken away some of our neighbors, the Miwok. And 
that also is good. But some day, when the clouds float high in the 
sky, he will discover the way into the Mutsun waters and then why 
should he not kill and enslave us also?" 

There is a nodding of grave heads all around and some exchange 
of furtive glances, in part directed toward Wixi, who is seated alone 
opposite the main group of elders. 

"In these circumstances," the speaker continues, this time looking 
sharply in the direction of a very old man central in the group, "in 
these circumstances some of us have thought it well to have Kakari, 
our Peace Chief, tell us the ancient story of our people, so that to- 
gether we may judge from past experience what is best for the 
future." 

Every one present, including Wixi, nods his head, and the word 
is taken up slowly and deliberately by the feeble old man, Kakari, 
the Peace Chief. 

"The story of the Mutsunes," the old man begins, "is long. It 
would take many nights to tell it all. I shall tell only two or three 
things that happened and which will show us what the 'Great Ones 
Above' expect us to do." 

"Yes, yes, what they expect us to do," echo the hearers. 

"Long ago," the old man continues, "when the Mutsun people 
first came to this water, they were poor. They came on foot from 
the far North. They had no boats and they had no bow and arrow. 
Wasaka had brought them fire and they had the digging-stick. That 
was all. Our people first went to live at Old-Old Akalan. At that 
time the place was not an island, it was a part of our own long 
Mutsun hill that shelters us here on the west. And while they lived 
there Chakalli came. He came from the 'Great Ones Above' and 
he brought with him the boat and the bow and arrow and the pipe 
and many other things. These he gave to the Mutsunes and he 
showed them also how they were to be used. But later, Coyote 



282 American Indian Life 

came along and told them how to make different ones and to use 
them differently. That made Chakalli angry and he struck at Old- 
Old Akalan with his digging-stick, the lightning, and, missing the 
village, knocked a big piece out of the hill beside it. This shook 
the ground and when the piece, struck off the hill, fell into the 
Mutsun water, over where it runs out to the big sea, the Mutsun 
water came up high and ran through the hole made in our hill, and 
Old-Old Akalan became an island. The piece knocked out of the 
hill also became an island, Mutsun Island, where our young men rest 
and wait for the tide when they go out to the big sea after abalones. 
Then Chakalli went away, but he did not go back to the 'Great Ones 
Above,' for every now and then the earth shakes and we know that 
somebody else has disobeyed instructions." 

Here old Kakari paused. It was becoming plain to Wixi why the 
meeting had been called. But there was more for him to hear. 

"After Chakalli went away," went on Kakari, "the Mutsun 
people had to move. The beach around the small island was not 
large enough to give them the clams they needed. Moreover, the 
driftwood for the fire would not lodge near the village as before. 
It all went through the new channel made by Chakalli, and across 
to where now live our neighbors the Earth People at Kawina. Some 
of it came up here. Therefore the Peace Chief of that day— Walen 
was his name— advised the people to move across to Kawina, but 
he himself remained with the 'Old People' at Old-Old Akalan (i. e., 
he died), and with him were left all the things that Chakalli had 
brought. To-morrow we shall sail over to Old-Old Akalan to see 
them. 

"The Mutsunes had made other boats, as well as bows, arrows, 
and everything, all copied after those brought by Chakalli. And 
they had no difficulty in sailing across the water to Kawina. 

"All went well for a long time at Kawina. Then trouble came 
once more. Coyote had brought a basket from the North, which 
he gave to the young women of the Miwok people over across the 
water at Tamalpais. He told them to boil food in it. They did 
so and liked it. Later on, the Miwok people told some of the young 
men from Kawina, who were over there looking for wood for new 
bows. Chakalli must have heard about it all, for he struck the 
earth a fierce blow over near where the bearded men came with the 



Wixi of the Shellmound People 283 

great white-winged ship. Chakalli's blow made a long, deep rent 
in the earth, and the big sea came in and filled it. You can see it 
there to-day. At that time the water also came up, and drowned 
many of the Mutsun people at Kawina, although they lived on a 
high mound they had made, like the one we now live on. Only 
the top of the mound was left above the water. 

"Soon after that the Mutsun people left Kawina, or Old Akalan, 
as they called the place. Many of them went east and south, making 
new homes all around the Mutsun water. Our people alone came 
over here, where they have been ever since. Those are the stories 
of Old-Old Akalan and of Old Akalan." 

Old Kakari's strength is being spent, and he leans back against the 
wall. But presently he goes on: "After we came over here, all went 
well again for a long time. Every one did as he was told by the 
elders, and Chakalli was pleased. One day the earth shook again and 
the water went away from around Kawina or Old Akalan. Our 
people thought it was Chakalli making ready for their going back to 
live once more near the 'Old People.' But before they could move 
over, Coyote came down from the North with some of the Earth 
People, who settled at Kawina. Coyote brought with him also the 
cooking basket and the fishing net." 

At this point the anger and resentment of the listeners are ex- 
pressed by low growls and explosive breaths through set teeth. 
Wixi alone, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and his 
chin resting in his hands, remains silent. 

Old Kakari makes a last effort: "The Earth People, the Poma, 
belong in the North. They do not belong here. Some of them 
speak our tongue, but they are not our people. At first we made 
war upon them, but Coyote was too clever for Chakalli. Yet though 
we are now at peace, we never marry their women, nor they ours. 
We are neighbors, not friends. To-morrow we shall go to see the 
proof of what I have told you. Katka (Be full of crickets)." And 
with this formula of conclusion the Peace Chief ceased. 

After a few moments of silence he leaned once more back against 
the wall as if in deep sleep. No one spoke, but, one after another, 
the listeners arose and left the council house. Outside, the night 
was black and no sound was to be heard except the sigh of the 
breezes over the marsh grass. 



284 American Indian Life 



PROOF 

At daybreak a large tule float stands out from the high, pointed 
cliff forming the southern extremity of Potrero San Pablo, and heads 
straight for Brooks Island. In a moment the swiftly paddled float 
is gone from sight. It carries all the men who were in the council 
lodge except one. Wixi is not there. The float left Akalan while 
the night was yet black, and the paddlers were obliged to feel their 
way along the shore as far as the pointed cliff, and to wait there 
until the island became faintly visible. Fortunately, this happened 
before they themselves could be observed from the home village, 
for their mission to Old-Old Akalan is secret. 

The skiff slips behind a large outlying rock and the next moment 
grates on a low, narrow, curving sand bar connecting the rock with 
the island proper. As the men step ashore, they see emerging out 
of the dim north a small float bearing one paddler. The solitary 
boatman lands on the opposite side of the sand bar, a few yards 
nearer to the island. It is Wixi. He draws his float across the 
ridge to the south slope of the bar, to lie with the other float. It is 
a precaution, lest sharp eyes at Akalan or Kawina discover that 
visitors are on the island. 

With the War Chief in the lead, the men proceed a few rods to 
the northwest corner of the island, which slopes conveniently to 
the beach. Bearing onward to the north shore, they walk eastward 
across a noticeable rise of ground toward a number of buckeye trees. 
Tall grasses and weeds cover the place. It is the mound left by the 
people of Old-Old Akalan. Here rest the bones of the oldest ances- 
tors of the Mutsunes. 

Having passed over the summit, the War Chief sights a line 
in the direction of the two oldest buckeye trees, and stations Wixi 
on the line. The older men he directs to sit down. He himself 
walks briskly to the nearest of the two trees, and returns again 
with steady, measured steps straight toward Wixi. As he walks, he 
counts the steps on his fingers. At a point half-way down the east 
slope of the mound, he suddenly comes to a halt and with a signifi- 
cant nod of his head motions every one toward him. From one of 
the men he takes a digging-stick, draws a rough circle around his 
standing place and says, 'This is the place. Dig!" 



Wixi of the Shellmound People 



285 



The men drop to their knees, partly to keep hidden in the tall 
grasses, and none dares to stand up again for it is now almost sun- 
rise. Some take to loosening up the earth with digging-sticks, and 
others scoop up the loosened portions with large abalone shells. 
In this way they make a hole several feet in diameter. Presently, 
at a depth of about two feet, they uncover the bones of a full-grown 
person with arms and legs doubled up tightly against the body. All 
exclaim under their breath. From the presence, next the skeleton, 
of a mortar and pestle, as well as certain bone awls and needles, 
the old men know that these are the remains of a woman. The 
spirit of the implements which the woman used in daily life, had 
gone, they would say, with the spirit of the departed to her new 
dwelling place in the far West. 

Deeper down, perhaps five or six feet, the workers come to another 
skeleton. On the breast of the body, they uncover a large, beauti- 
fully shaped obsidian blade. Close to the shoulder are found a 
number of arrow points, just as they were left when the wooden 
shafts decayed away. Near one hand lie, side by side, two highly 
polished, steatite tobacco pipes. On either side of the skull is a disk- 
shaped ear pendant of iridescent abalone shell, and all about the 
neck and shoulders are many beads of clamshell. The workers 
are agreed that these are the remains of a great man and the War 
Chief emphatically declares them to be those of the ancient Peace 
Chief Walen, himself. All the old men demur to this, however, 
contending that Walen, according to the traditions, was buried, not 
in the black refuse material left by the inhabitants of Old-Old 
Akalan, but lower down in virgin soil. 

All through the day the digging continues, and skeleton after 
skeleton is taken up — men, women, and children. Each was origin- 
ally buried beneath the floor of the hut in which he or she died, and 
in the course of time, as shells and ashes accumulated above their 
bones, a new hut was built, again to be destroyed with the succeeding 
death. 

As the men dig deeper and deeper, the paraphernalia of the dead 
become fewer and fewer, and even where anything at all is present, 
the object is crude and unfinished. There are no more pipes, no 
beautiful obsidian blades, and no fine, ivory-like awls or needles. 
What can it mean? Did the ancestors of early days not possess 



286 



American Indian Life 



these things? Some such thoughts are surely passing through the 
mind of some of the workers, certainly of the War Chief, for he 
suddenly declares his belief that they are not digging in the right 
place. But the old men only smile and work on. 

At last, shortly before dark, there are signs of bottom to the 
mound material. Real earth is beginning to appear, and before 
long human bones are turned up. Very soon the complete skeleton 
is laid bare. No implements have been found, but every one's atten- 
tion is centred on a bright red spot near the extended right hand 
of the skeleton. It is a quantity of paint powder, such as has been 
noticed to accompany several of the men skeletons. The War Chief, 
now visibly excited, grasps a sharp-edged abalone shell and eagerly 
cuts into the red substance. The next moment the shell drops from 
his hand. He, with the rest, is staring blankly at seven large, 
beautifully clear quartz crystals — the whole of Walen's trea- 
sure! . . . 

It is morning. The remains of the dead have been replaced and 
all obvious traces of disturbance removed. Let the "Old People" 
of Old-Old Akalan rest until the sea removes them! Wixi has 
labored hard and is weary in body, but in spirit he is a new man. 
Has he not had proof from the graves? Knows he not for a certainty 
that the life of the Mutsunes has not stood still in the past, and is 
he not determined that it shall unfold and develop in the future? . . . 

The old men are sleeping after their arduous work, continued 
far into the night. Wixi alone has watched restlessly for the dawn, 
and when the cliff across the Mutsun channel is distinctly visible, 
he puts off with his featherweight skiff. He is scudding along with 
swift, sure strokes and is already near enough to the opposite shore 
to see a woman waving to him from the top of the bluff. It is 
Mahudah, who has watched for his return since the evening before. 
The sun's first rays are just beginning to play around her as she stands 
there on high, and Wixi is raising his paddle in the air to wave rec- 
ognition. At that moment Mahudah utters a loud, piercing scream 
and turns to run from the edge of the precipice. Portions of rock 
and earth fall to the beach, and a rising cloud of dust obscures the 
figure of the fleeing woman. A moment later Wixi is raised on the 
crest of a tremendous wave, which carries him with the speed of a 
swooping eagle directly against the face of the cliff. 



Wixi of the Shellmound People 



287 



The old men of Akalan, awakened by the first tremors of the earth, 
witness the whole scene. Most of them simply shake their heads. 
(But the War Chief, affecting solemnity, announces: "Chakalli has 
struck! The old order remains." 

N. C. Nelson 



All Is Trouble Along the Klamath 



A YUROK IDYLL 

(MRS. OREGON Jim, from the house Erkiger-i or "Hair-ties" in the 
town of Pekwan, speaking) : You want to know why old Louisa and 
I never notice each other? Well, I'll tell you why. I wouldn't 
speak to that old woman to save her life. There is a quarrel be- 
tween her and me, and between her people and my people. 

The thing started, so far as I know, with the bastard son of a wo- 
man from that big old house in Wahsek that stands crossways — the 
one they call Wahsek-hethlqau. They call it that, of course, because 
it is behind the others. It kind of sets back from the river. This 
woman lived with several different men ; first with a young fellow 
from the house next door, and then, when she left him, with a 
strolling fellow from Smith River. When she left him for a Hupa, 
they all began to call her kimolin, "dirty." Not one of these men had 
paid a cent for her, although she came of good people. She lived 
around in different places. Two of her children died, but a third 
one grew up at the Presbyterian Mission. 

He had even less sense than the Presbyterians have. He came 
down to Kepel one time, when the people there were making the 
Fish Dam. It was the last day of the work on the dam. The dam 
was being finished, that day. That's the time nobody can get mad. 
Nobody can take offense at anything. This boy heard people call- 
ing each other bad names. They were having a dance. The time of 
that dance is different from all other times. People say the worst 
things! It sounds funny to hear the people say, for example, to old 
Kimorets, "Well, old One-Eye! you are the best dancer." They 
think of the worst things to say! A fellow even said to Mrs. Poker 
Bob, "How is your grandmother?"; when Mrs. Poker Bob's grand- 
mother was already dead. It makes your blood run cold to hear 
such things, even though you know it's in fun. 

This young fellow I am telling you about, whom they called Fred 
Williams, and whose Indian name was Sar, came down from the 

2S9 



290 



American Indian Life 



Mission school to see the Fish-Dam Dance at Kepel. He was dressed 
up. He went around showing off. He wore a straw hat with a 
ribbon around it. He stood around watching the dance. Between 
the songs, he heard what people were saying to each other. He heard 
them saying all sorts of improper things. He thought that was smart 
talk. He thought he would try it when he got a chance. The next 
day, he went down by the river and saw Tuley-Creek Jim getting 
ready his nets. "Get your other hand cut off," he said. "Then you 
can fish with your feet!" Two or three people who were standing by, 
heard him. Tuley-Creek Jim is pretty mean. They call him "Coy- 
ote." He looked funny. He stood there. He didn't know what to 
say. 

Young Andrew, who was there, whose mother was from the house 
called "Down-river House" in Qovtep, was afraid for his life. He 
was just pushing off his boat. He let go of the rope. The boat 
drifted off. He was afraid to pull it back. He went up to the house. 
"Something happened," he told the people there. "I wish I was 
somewhere else. There is going to be trouble along this Klamath 
River." 

The talk soon went around that Coyote-Jim was claiming some 
money. It was told us that he was going to make the boy's mother's 
father pay fifteen dollars. "That's my price," he said. "I won't do 
anything to the boy, for he isn't worth it. Nobody paid for his 
mother. Also, I won't charge him much. But his mother's people 
are well-to-do, and they will have to pay this amount that I name. 
Otherwise, I will be mad." As a matter of fact, he was afraid to do 
anything, for he, himself, was afraid of the soldiers at Hupa. He 
just made big talk. Besides, what he wanted was a headband or- 
namented with whole woodpecker heads, that the boy's grandfather 
owned. He thought he could make the old man give it up, on ac- 
count of what his grandson had said. 

The boy went around, hollering to everybody. "I don't have to 
pay," he said. "I heard everybody saying things like that! How 
did'l know that they only did it during that one day? Besides, look 
at me! Look at my shirt. Look at my pants." He showed them 
his straw hat. "Look at my hat! I am just like a white man. I 
can say anything I please. I don't have to care what I say." 

Every day somebody came along the river, telling us the news. 



All Is Trouble Along the Klamath 



291 



There was a big quarrel going on. I was camped at that time, with 
my daughter, above Meta, picking acorns. All the acorns were bad 
that year — little, and twisted, and wormy. Even the worms were 
little and kind of shriveled that year. That place above Meta was 
the only place where the acorns were good. Lots of people were 
camped there. Some paid for gathering acorns there. My aunt 
had married into a house at Meta, the house they call Woogi, "In- 
the-middle-House," so I didn't have to pay anything. People used to 
come up from the river to where we acorn pickers were camped, to 
talk about the news. They told us the boy's mother's people were 
trying to make some people at Smith River pay. "He's the son of 
one of their men," the old grandfather said. "They've got to pay 
for the words he spoke. I don't have to pay." The thing dragged 
on. Three weeks later they told us the old man wouldn't pay yet. 

Somebody died at the old man's house that fall. The people were 
getting ready to have a funeral. The graveyard for that house 
called Hethlqau, in Wahsek, is just outside the house door. They 
went into that kamethl, in that corpse-place, what you whites call 
a cemetery. They dug a hole and had it ready. They were singing 
"crying-songs" in that house where the person had died. 

Tuley-Creek Jim's brother-in-law was traveling down the river in 
a canoe. When he got to Wahsek he heard "crying songs." "Some- 
body has died up there," they told him. "We better stop! No use 
trying to go by. We better go ashore till the burial is over." 
Tuley-Creek Jim's brother-in-law did not want to stop. "They 
owe some money to my wife's brother," he said. "One of their peo- 
ple said something to Jim. They don't pay up. Why should I go 
ashore?" So they all paddled down to the landing-place. They 
started to go past, going down-river. A young fellow at the landing- 
place grabbed their canoe. "You got to land here," he said. "My 
aunt's people are having a funeral. It ain't right for anybody to go 
by in a canoe." The people in the canoe began to get mad. They 
pushed on the bottom with their paddles. The canoe swung around. 
Coyote-Jim's brother-in-law stood up. He was pretty mad. They 
had got his shirt wet. He waved his paddle around. He hollered. 
He got excited. 

One of the men on the bank was Billy Brooks, from the mouth 
of the river. "Hey! You fellow-living-with-a-woman-you-haven't- 



292 American Indian Life 

paid-for!" he said to Billy Brooks, "make these fellows let go of 
my canoe." 

Billy was surprised. He hadn't been holding the canoe. And 
anyway, he did not expect to be addressed that way. "Las-son" is 
what he had heard addressed to him. That means "half-married, or 
improperly married, to a woman in the house by the trail." Brooks 
had had no money to pay for a wife, so he went to live with his wo- 
man instead of taking her home to him. That is what we call being 
half-married. Everybody called Billy that way, behind his back. 
"Half-married-into-the-house-by-the-trail" was his name. 

When Billy got over being surprised at this form of address, he got 
mad. He pointed at the fellow in the canoe. He swore the worst 
way a person can swear. What he said was awful. He pointed at 
him. He was mad clear through. He didn't care What he said. 
"Your deceased relatives," is what he said to Coyote-Jim's brother- 
in-law, in the canoe. He said it right out loud. He pointed at 
the canoe. That's the time he said "Your deceased relatives." "All 
your deceased relatives," he said to those in the canoe. 

Coyote-Jim's brother-in-law sat down in the canoe. Nobody tried 
to stop the canoe after that. The canoe went down-river. Billy 
Brooks went up to the house. He waited. After a while the people 
there buried that person who was dead, and the funeral was over. 
"I've got to pay money," Billy Brooks said to them then. "I got mad 
and swore something terrible at Coyote-Jim's brother-in-law. That 
was on account of you people. If you had paid what you owed to 
Coyote-Jim, Coyote-Jim's brother-in-law wouldn't have gone past 
your house while you were crying, and you wouldn't have held his 
canoe, and he wouldn't have addressed me as he did, and I wouldn't 
have said what I did. Moreover, Wohkel Dave was in the canoe, 
and when I said that which I said, it applied to him, too. I feel 
terrible mean about what I said. I've got to have trouble with both 
those men. There were others in the canoe, too, but they are poor 
people, and don't amount to anything. But Dave is a rich man. 
Now all this trouble is on your account, and you've got to pay me two 

dollars and a half." 

The old man at Wahsek was in trouble. "First my mouse says 
to Coyote-Jim what should not in any case have been said," the old 



All Is Trouble Along the Klamath 



293 



man complained. (We call illegitimate children "mice," because 
they eat, and stay around, and nobody has paid for them.) "Now 
on account of what my mouse said, all this other trouble has 
happened." 

Everybody was talking about the quarrel now. That is the time 
they left off talking about the old man's troubles, and began talking 
about what Billy Brooks said to the Coyote's brother-in-law in the 
canoe, and to Wohkel Dave. It finally came out that the fellow 
who was steering the canoe, and who called Billy Brooks "Las-son," 
was out of the quarrel. His deceased relatives had been referred 
to, but, on the other hand, his father had only paid twenty-five 
dollars for his mother, so nobody cared much about him. He talked 
around but nobody paid any attention, so he decided that he had 
better keep still about it, and maybe people would forget that he 
had been insulted. 

Wohkel Dave, however, was a man of importance. His people 
were married into all the best houses up and down the river. Every- 
body was wondering what he and Brooks would do. Billy Brooks 
was kind of a mean man himself. He had a bad reputation. One 
time he even made a white man pay up for something he did. The 
white man took a woman from Brooks' people to live with him. 
Brooks looked him up, and made him pay for her. Everybody was 
afraid of Brooks. Some people said, "Brooks won't pay. He's too 
mean. He's not afraid. He'd rather fight it out." Other people 
said, "That's all right, as far as ordinary people are concerned. 
Wohkel Dave, though, is not ordinary. His father paid a big price 
for his mother. She had one of the most stylish weddings along 
the river. Dave won't let anybody get the best of him." People 
used to argue that way. Some said one thing, and some said another. 
They used to almost quarrel about it. 

Suddenly news came down the river that Billy Brooks was going 
to pay up for what he said. Some one came along and told 
us that Billy was going to pay. "He offered twenty-five dollars," 
this fellow said. The next day we heard that Dave wouldn't take it. 
He wanted forty dollars. They argued back and forth. It was 
February before they got it settled. Billy had to pay twenty dollars 
in money, a shot-gun made out of an army musket, bored out, and 



294 



American Indian Life 



a string of shell money, not a very good one. The shells were 
pretty small, but the string was long — reaching from the chest bone 
to the end of the fingers. 

The next thing that happened is what involved me and old 
Louisa. It came about because Billy didn't have twenty dollars 
in cash. He had to get hold of the twenty dollars. About that 
time, certain Indians stole some horses. They were not people 
from our tribe. They were Chilula from Bald Hills, or people 
from over in that direction somewhere. Those people were awful 
poor. They couldn't pay for a woman. They couldn't pay for 
anything. They had to marry each other. In the springtime they 
got pretty wild. They were likely to do things. This time they 
took some horses from a white man. This white man complained 
to the agent at Hupa. So some soldiers from Hupa went out to 
chase these Indians. Billy Brooks was a great hunter. He has 
been all over everywhere, hunting and trapping. The soldiers 
needed a guide. They offered Billy twenty-five dollars to serve 
as a "scout" for the Government, to chase these Indians. So Billy, 
because he had to have twenty dollars, went as a scout, that time. 

The soldiers went to Redwood Creek. Billy Brooks went along. 
There was a sergeant and six men, they say. Two of the men went 
to that fndian town six miles above the mouth of Redwood Creek, 
the name of which is Otlep. That town belongs to the Chilula. 
These two soldiers went there, looking for the men who stole the 
horses. There was trouble after a while at that place. The 
soldiers got into a quarrel with the Indians. 

The trouble was about a woman. One of the soldiers wanted her, 
but the woman would not go with him. She did not feel like it. 
I don't know exactly what happened, but the soldier insisted, and 
the woman insisted, and finally her relatives told the soldier that 
if the woman didn't want to, she didn't have to. There was a fight 
that time. There was a tussel about the soldier's revolver. Some- 
body got hit over the head with it. The front sight was sharp. 
That soldier had filed down the sight on his revolver, to make it 
fine. That sight dug into a man's face, and cut it open, from his 
jaw bone up to his eye. 

There was big trouble there that time, they say. Everybody 
got to hollering. That woman had a bad temper. She hit a sol- 



All Is Trouble Along the Klamath 295 

dier with a rock. She broke his head open. The man whose face 
was cut open went for his gun. He couldn't see very well. He 
didn't get the percussion cap on properly. He tried to shoot the 
soldier, but the gun wouldn't go off. The cap had dropped off the 
nipple. The soldier saw the Indian aiming the gun at him, so he 
fired at the Indian. There was blood in the soldier's eyes, for the 
woman had cut his head open with a rock So he missed the Indian 
who was aiming at him, but he hit old Louisa's nephew, Jim 
Williams. The bullet went through his thigh. Two years passed 
before Jim Williams could walk straight after that. 

Now that is the trouble between old Louisa and me. Her nephew 
was hurt, and she blames Billy Brooks, because Billy Brooks was 
with the soldiers, helping them, the time this happened. Billy 
would never "pay up" for this. One time it was reported that he 
was going to pay, but he never did. 

Now Billy is a relative of mine by marriage. His sister married 
my father's brother's oldest boy. That old woman, whose nephew was 
shot, doesn't like me, because I am a relative of Billy who guided the 
soldiers. 

One time she played me a dirty trick. My nephew was fishing 
with a gill-net on the river here. The game warden made a com- 
plaint and had him arrested, for he had one end of his net fast to 
the bank. That old woman, that old Louisa, went to Eureka and 
told the judge there, that one end of the net was fast to the bank. 
They say she got money for doing that. Somebody said she got two 
dollars a day. My nephew was put in jail for sixty days. I am 
not saying anything to that old woman, but I am keeping a watch on 
her. If anybody talks to her, then I have nothing to do with them. 

One time a white man from down below came along this river, 
asking about baskets. He wanted to know the name of everything. 
He was kind of crazy, that fellow. They used to call him "Hapo'o," 
or "Basket-designs." He was always asking, "What does that 
mean?" or "What is the name of that?" He wanted to know all 
about baskets. He talked to old Louisa for a day and a half about 
her baskets. Then he came through the fence to my house. I 
wouldn't say a word to him, and he went away. My friends won't 
talk to Louisa, or her friends. It will be that way forever. 

It all goes back to that boy Sar. If he had not talked about 



296 



American Indian Life 



Tuley-Creek Jim having only one hand, Jim's brother-in-law would 
not have paddled past a house where there was a person lying dead, 
and his canoe would not have been seized, and there would have 
been no quarrel about the canoe, and Billy Brooks would not have 
sworn at anybody, so he would not have had to pay money, and he 
would not have hired out as a scout to the Government, and the 
fellow in Redwood Creek would not have been shot, and old Louisa 
would not have testified about my nephew. To make people pay 
is all right. That is what always happens when there is a quarrel. 
But to put my nephew in jail is not right. 

I'll never speak to that old lady again, and neither will any of 
my people. 

T. T. Waterman 



Sayach'apis, a Nootka Trader 



TOM is a blind old man, whose staff may be heard anv dav stumping 
or splashing along the village street of his tribal reservation, or up 
or down the hillside that slopes to the smoke-drying huts massed 
by the Somass river. He is an honored member of the Ts'isha'ath, 
a Nootka tribe that is now permanently located a few miles up from 
the head of Alberni Canal, the deepest inlet on the west coast of 
Vancouver Island. The Ts'isha'ath fishes and harpoons along the 
river, the length of the "Canal," and down among the hundreds of 
islands that dot Barkley Sound, the first of the large bavs north 
of Cape Beale that are carved out on the stormy coast line of the 
island. 

Tom's early life was passed at the now abandoned village of 
Hikwis. whose row of houses looked out upon the main water of 
the Sound, but for decades he has led an uneventful existence in 
his river reservation and its vicinity, old summer fishing-grounds 
that were conquered in the first instance by his people from an 
alien tribe. Within convenient reach are the slowly booming white 
men's towns of Alberni and Port Alberni, where one mav lav in a 
supply of biscuits and oranges for a tribal feast, or make periodic 
complaint to the Indian Agent. Tom is now old and poverty- 
stricken, but the memory of his former wealth is with his people. 
The many feasts he has given and the many ceremonial dances and 
displays he has had performed have all had their desired effect — 
they have shed luster on his sons and daughters and grandchildren, 
they have "put his family high" among the Ts'isha'ath tribe, and 
they have even carried his name to other, distant Xootka tribes, and 
to tribes on the east coast of the island that are of alien speech. 
Nowadays he spends much of his time by the fireside, tapping his 
staff in accompaniment to old ritual tunes that he is never tired of 
humming. 

Tom's present name is Sayach'apis, Stands-up-high-over-all. It 
is an old man's name of eight generations' standing, that hails from 
the Hisawist'ath, a now extinct Xootka tribe with which Tom is 

297 



298 American Indian Life 

connected through his father's mother's mother, who was herself a 
Hisawist'ath on her mother's side. The tribe is extinct, but its 
personal names, like its songs and legends and distinctive ritualistic 
ceremonies, linger on among the neighboring tribes through the 
fine spun network of inheritance. The name "Stands-up-high-over- 
all," like practically all Nootka, and indeed all West Coast names, 
has its legendary background, its own historical warrant. The first 
Nootka chief to bear the name, obtained it in a dream. He was 
undergoing ritualistic training in the woods in the pursuit of 
"power" for the attainment of wealth, and had not slept for a long 
time. At last he fell into a heavy slumber, and this is what he 
dreamed: The Sky Chief appeared to him and said, "Why are 
you sleeping, Stands-up-high-over-all? You are not really desirous 
of getting wealthy, are you? I was about to make you wealthy and 
to give you the name Stands-up-high-over-all." The ironical touch 
is a characteristic nuance in these origin legends. And so the name, 
a supernatural gift, was handed down the generations, now by direct 
male inheritance, now as a dower to a son-in-law, resident at some 
village remote from its place of origin. This is the normal manner, 
actually or in theory, of the transmission of all privileges, and though 
the owner of a privilege may be a villager a hundred miles or more 
distant from its historical or legendary home, he has not completely 
established his right to its use unless he has shown himself, directly or 
by reference to a speaker acquainted with tribal lore, possessed of the 
origin legend, the local provenance, and the genealogical tree or 
"historical" nexus that binds him to the individual, that is believed 
to have been the first to enjoy the privilege. 

Tom did not always have the name of Sayach'apis, nor need he 
keep it to the end of his days. He assumed it over thirty years 
ago on the occasion of his great potlatch, a puberty feast in honor 
of his now deceased oldest daughter. At that time he had the young 
man's name of Nawe'ik, now borne by his oldest son, Douglas. It 
is a name belonging to the Nash'as'ath sept or tribal subdivision of 
the Ts'isha'ath, and was first dreamt by Tom's maternal grand- 
father It is thus a name of comparatively recent origin, nor does 
it possess that aura of noble association that attaches to Tom's present 
name Its exact meaning is unknown, but it is said to have been 
a command— "Come here!"-of a spirit whale, dreamt of by its 



Sayach'apis, a Nootka Trader 



299 



first possessor. Tom assumed it at a potlatch he gave to his own 
tribe when he was not yet married. It was just about the time that 
the discovery of placer gold in the Prazer river was bringing a con- 
siderable influx of whites to British Columbia. 

Before this, Tom was known as Kunnuh, a Nitinat young man's 
name, "Wake up!", which is again based on the dream of a spirit 
whale. The Nitinat Indians are a group of Nootka tribes that 
occupy the southwest coast of the island, and Tom's claim to the 
name and to other Nitinat privileges comes to him through his 
paternal grandfather, himself a Nitinat Indian. The name origi- 
nated with his grandfather's father's father's father, who received it 
in a dream as he was training for "power" in whaling. It was 
assumed by Tom when he was about ten years of age, at a naming 
feast given the Ts'isha'ath Indians by his Nitinat grandfather. It 
displaced the boy's name Ha'wihlkumuktli, "Having-chiefs-behind," 
this time of true Ts'isha'ath origin and descending to Tom through 
his paternal grandmother's father's father, who again received the 
name in a dream from a spirit whale. This ancestor was having 
much success in whaling and, becoming exceedingly wealthy, was 
"leaving other chiefs behind him." Tom was given the name at an 
ordinary feast by his paternal grandfather. 

The earliest name that Tom remembers having is Tl'i'nitsawa, 
"Getting-whale-skin." When the great chief Hohenikwop had his 
whale booty towed to shore, the little boys used to come to the 
beach for slices of whale skin, so he made up the name of "Getting- 
whale-skin" for his son. The right to use it was inherited by his 
oldest son, but was also passed on to the chief's younger sister, who 
brought it as a dowry to the father of Tom's paternal grandfather. 
Tom himself received the name on the occasion of a mourning pot- 
latch given by his paternal grandfather in honor of his son, Tom's 
father, who had died not long before. Before this, Tom had a 
child's nickname, in other words, a name bestowed not out of the 
inherited stock of names claimed by his parents, but created on the 
spot for any chance reason whatever. Such nicknames have no 
ceremonial value, are not privileges, and are therefore not handed 
down as an inheritance or transferred as a dowry. Tom has forgotten 
what his nickname was. 

At the very outset, in the mere consideration of what Tom has 



300 American Indian Life 

called himself at various times, we are introduced to the two great 
social forces that give atmosphere to Nootka life. The first of 
these is privilege, the right to something of value, practical or 
ceremonial. Such a privilege is called "topati" by the Indians, and 
one cannot penetrate very far into their life or beliefs without stum- 
bling upon one topati after another. The second is the network 
of descent and kinship relation that determines the status of the 
North West Coast Indian, not merely as a tribesman once for all, but 
in reference to his claim to share in any activity of moment. The 
threads of the genealogical past are wound tightly about the North 
West Coastman; he is himself a traditional composite of social fea- 
tures that belong to diverse localities, and involve him in diverse kin- 
ship relations. 

As far back, then, as he can remember, Tom has been steeped in 
an atmosphere of privilege, of rank, of conflicting claims to this or 
that coveted right. As far back as he can remember, he has heard 
remarks like this: "Old man Tootooch has no right to have such and 
such a particular Thunder-bird dance performed at his potlatches. 
His claim to it is not clear. In my grandfather's days men were 
killed for less than that, and the head chief of the Ahous'ath tribe, 
who has the primary claim to the dance, would have called him 
sharply to order." But he has also heard Tootooch vigorously sup- 
port his claim with arguments, genealogical and other, that no one 
quite knows the right or wrong of. And as far back as he can 
remember, Tom has been accustomed to think of himself not merely 
as a Ts'isha'ath, though he is primarily that by residence and im- 
mediate descent, but as a participant in the traditions, in the social 
atmosphere, of several other Nootka tribes. He has always known 
where to look for his remoter kinsmen, dwelling in villages that are 
dotted here and there on a long coast line. 

The first few years of Tom's life were spent in a "cradle" of 
basketry, in which he was tightly swathed by sundry wrappings 
and braids of the soft, beaten inner bark of the cedar. Even now 
he has a vague recollection of looking out over the sea from the erect 
vantage of a cradling basket, looped behind his mother's shoulders. 
He also thinks he remembers crying bitterly one time when left all 
by himself in the basket, stood up on end against the butt of a willow 
tree, while his mother and four or five other women had strayed off 



Sayach'apis, a Nootka Trader 



301 



to dig for edible clover roots with their hard, pointed digging-sticks. 

During the cradling period, Tom was having his head, or rather his 
forehead, gradually flattened by means of cedar-bark pads, and the 
upper and lower parts of his legs were bandaged so as to allow the 
calves to bulge. The Indians believe that they do not like big fore- 
heads and slim legs, nor do they approve of wide eyebrows, which 
are narrowed, if necessary, by plucking out some of the hairs. Later 
on in life Tom was less particular about his natural appearance, 
having been well "fixed" by his mother in infancy. Like the other 
men of his tribe, he has never bothered to pluck out the scanty 
growth of hair on his face. Some of the Indians of Tom's acquain- 
tance have tattooed themselves, generally on the breast, with de- 
signs referring to their hunting experiences, or to crest privileges — 
a quarter-moon or a sea lion or a pair of Thunder-birds, — but Tom 
has never bothered to do this. Aside from the head-flattening of 
infancy, Tom has never had any portion of his body mutilated, unless 
the perforation of his ears and the septum of his nose, for the attach- 
ment of ear and nose pendants of the bright rainbow-like abalone, 
strung by sinew threads, be considered a mutilation. These pen- 
dants, which he and other Indians have long discarded, were worn 
purely for ornament; they had no importance as ceremonial insignia. 

In spite of the fact that neither razor nor tweezers have ever 
smoothed out the hairy surface of his face, Tom has not altogether 
neglected the care of his body. To prevent chapping, he has often 
rubbed himself with tallow and red paint, and in his younger days 
he was in the habit of keeping himself in good condition by a cold 
plunge, at daybreak, in river or sea. The vigorous rubbing 
down with hemlock branches which followed, until the skin all 
tingled red, helped to give tone to his body. He could not afford 
to miss the plunge and rub-down for more than two or three days at 
a time, if only because to have done so would have brought upon 
him the contempt and derision of his comrades. No aspiring young 
hunter of the seal and the sea lion could allow himself to be called 
a woman. In the course of his long life Tom has painted his face 
in a great variety of ways, whether for festive occasions, or in the 
private quest of supernatural power in some secluded spot in the 
woods. Some of these face paints — and there are hundreds of them 
in use among the Nootka — are geometrical patterns, others are em- 



302 



American Indian Life 



blematic of supernatural beings and animals. Many of them, like 
the songs and dances with which they are associated, are looked upon 
as valuable privileges. 

It is long since Tom has worn or seen worn native costume — what 
little there was of it — but he distinctly remembers the blankets and 
cedar-bark garments that his people wore when he was a boy and, 
indeed, well on into his days of manhood. The heavy rains of the 
Coast, and the constant necessity of splashing in and out of the canoes 
along the beach, made tight-fitting garments and cumbrous foot- 
and leg-wear undesirable. The Nootka Indians wore no clinging 
shirts or leggings or moccasins. They are a barefoot and a bare- 
legged people. Those of the men who could afford more than a 
breechclout wore a blanket robe loosely thrown about the body, 
either a hide — of bear or the far more valuable sea otter — or a woven 
blanket, whether of the inner-bark strands of the "yellow cedar" or 
the long, fleecy hair of the native dogs. The women wore cedar- 
bark "petticoats," which are nothing but loosely fitting girdles, 
fringed with long tassels of cedar bark. In rainy weather, they also 
wore woven hats of cedar-bark strands or split root fibers, round 
topped and cone-like. When the weather was thick and heavy with 
rain — and this happens often enough in the winter — both men and 
women wore raincapes of cedar bark or rush matting. The children 
ran about completely naked. 

The food that Tom was accustomed to in his early days did not 
differ materially from his present fare. It was then, and is now, 
chiefly fish — boiled, steam-baked, spit-roasted, or smoked. In all 
his early haunts, in the houses and along the beach, everywhere he 
was immersed in grateful, fishy odors. From the earliest time that 
he can remember anything at all, he has been daily confronted by 
some aspect of the life of a fishing people, whether it be the catching 
of salmon trout by the boys with their two-barbed fish spears; or 
the spearing or trolling or netting of salmon by the older men; or the 
getting in the sea of herrings with herring rakes, of halibut with the 
peculiar, gracefully bent halibut hooks that every Indian even now 
has kicking around in his box of odds and ends, of cod with twirling 
decoys and spears that have two prongs of unequal length — "older" 
and "younger"; or the hanging up of salmon in rows to dry in the 
smoke houses, so that this all-important fish may still contribute his 



Sayach'apis, a Nootka Trader 



303 



share of the food supply, long after the last salmon of the late fall has 
ceased to run; or the splitting up of the salmon by the women as 
a first preliminary to cooking; or any one of the hundreds of other 
scenes that make of a fisher folk a fish-handling and a fish-eating 
people. 

Second in importance to fish are the various varieties of edible 
shellfish and other soft bodied inhabitants of the sea — mussels and 
clams and sea urchins, sea cucumbers, and octopuses. The flesh of 
the octopus or "devil-fish," though not an important article of food, 
was considered quite a dainty, and feasts were often given in which 
it figured as a special feature, like crab apples or like the apples 
or oranges of present-day feasts. Far more important than these 
mushy foods, though probably subsidiary, on the whole, to salmon 
and other fish, was the flesh of sea mammals— the humpbacked whale, 
the California whale, the sea otter, the sea lion, and, most important 
of all, the hair seal. 

Tom has harpooned his fill of seals in the course of his life and, 
like most other Nootka men of the last generation, has done a con- 
siderable amount of commercial sealing for white firms in Behring 
Sea. He has caught a few sea otters, which are now all but extinct, 
but no sea lions or whales, though he claims to have the hereditary 
privilege to hunt these animals, and to possess the indispensable 
magical knowledge without which their quest is believed by the 
Nootka to be doomed to failure. 

Boiled whale and seal meat were highly prized and there was no 
more joyous event to break the monotony of tribal life than the 
towing to shore of a harpooned whale, or the drifting to shore of a 
whale carcass. In either case the flensing knives were quickly got 
ready, the carcass cut up, and feasts held in the village. Tom re- 
members how excitedly — he was then but a boy of ten or so — he 
once reported the appearance of a drifting whale carcass a quarter- 
mile from shore, how the whole village rushed into its canoes, and 
how they laboriously floated it on to the sandy beach, with their stout 
lanyards of cedar rope wound with nettle-fiber. The whale was cut 
up carefully, under the direction of a "measurer" into its tradition- 
ally determined portions, which were then distributed, according to 
hereditary right, to those entitled to receive them. Tom himself 
got the meat about the navel as a reward for his find. There was 



304 



American Indian Life 



an unusual amount of whale oil tried out that time, and the fires at 
the feasts leaped higher than ever as the oil was thrown upon them, 
lighting up in lurid flashes the house posts carved into the likenesses 
of legendary ancestors. 

Tom ate very little meat of land animals in his early days. 
Indeed, like most of the Coast people, he had a prejudice against 
deer meat and it was not until, as a middle-aged man, he had come 
into contact with some of the deer-hunting tribes of the interior of 
the island, that he learned to prize it, though even to this day venison 
has not for him the toothsome appeal of a chunk of whale meat. Fish 
and meat were the staples, yet not the only foods. The women dug 
up a variety of edible roots such as clover and fern root, which made 
a welcome change, while blackberries, salmon berries, soapberries, 
and other varieties, frequently dried and pressed for winter consump- 
tion, added a sweetening to the somewhat monotonous fare. One 
relish Tom has never learned to enjoy — salt. All the older Nootka 
Indians detest salt in their food. 

As Tom grew up, he became initiated into the chief handicrafts 
of his tribe. He got to be rather skillful at working in wood, both 
the soft red cedar and the hard yew and spiraea, familiarizing him- 
self with the various wood-working processes — felling trees with 
wedges and stone hammers, splitting out planks, smoothing with 
adzes, drilling, handling the curved knife, steaming, and bending 
by the "kerfing" or notching process. Even in his youngest years, 
iron-bladed and iron-pointed tools had almost completely replaced 
the aboriginal implements of stone and shell, but the forms them- 
selves, of the manufactured objects, underwent little or no modifica- 
tion down to the present day. In the course of his long life Tom 
has made hundreds of wooden articles of use— boxes with telescop- 
ing lids, paddles, bailers, fish clubbers, adze handles, ladles, bows, 
arrow shafts, fire drills, latrines, root diggers, fish spears, and shafts 
for sealing and whaling harpoons. He has also assisted in making 
dugout canoes, and has often prepared and put in position the heavy 
posts and beams of the large quadrangular houses that were still 
being built in his youth. On the other hand, Tom has never de- 
veloped much aptitude in the artistic decoration of objects. Such 
things as paintings on house boards and paddles, or realistic carvings 
in masks, rattles, ornamental fish clubbers and house posts, are rather 



Sayach'apis, a Nootka Trader 



305 



beyond his power and have had to be made for him, when required, 
by others more clever than himself. The one thing that Tom grew 
to be most proficient in was the preparation of house planks of 
desired lengths and widths. When he was a young man, he would 
travel about in canoes from village to village with the stock of planks 
he had on hand, and trade them for blankets, strings of dentalium 
shells, dried fish, whale oil, and other exchangeable commodities. 
It was through trading, rather than through personal success in 
fishing or hunting, that Tom amassed in time a considerable share 
of wealth, and it was through his wealth and the opportunity it 
gave him to make lavish distributions at potlatches or feasts, rather 
than through nobility of blood, that he came to occupy his present 
honorable position among his tribesmen. 

While Tom and the other men, when they were not busy "pot- 
latching" or visiting some relative, or taking a run down to Victoria, 
were engaged in fishing and sea mammal hunting and wood-working, 
the women prepared the food, dug for edible roots, gathered clams, 
and spent what time they could spare from these and similar tasks 
in the weaving and plaiting of blankets, matting, and baskets. What 
receptacles were not of wood were of basketry, while mats of vari- 
ous sorts did duty for tables, hangings, and carpeting. The ma- 
terials of these baskets and mats, the omnipresent cedar bark and 
the rush, frayed easily, so that the women were kept constantly busy 
replenishing the household stock. Even now one can hardly enter 
a Nootka house without seeing one or more of the women twilling 
mats and baskets with strips of softened cedar bark or twining the 
cedar-bark strands into cordage and bags, or threading a rush mat 
with the long needles of polished spiraea. In the old days, there 
was always in the house a great clatter of breaking up the raw, 
yellow cedar bark with the corrugated bark beaters of bone of 
whale, annd of loosening up the hard strips of red cedar bark into 
fibrous masses with the half-moon shredders. The women could 
work up the bark into almost any degree of fineness ; indeed, the cedar- 
bark "wool" that was used to pad the cradles is almost as soft and 
fluffy in feel as down or cotton batting. When Tom was a boy, the 
women made only plain, unornamented baskets, whether twined 
or twilled, and ornamented the mats with sober, but effective lines 
of alder-dyed red and mud-dyed black. Since then, however, they 



306 



American Indian Life 



have taken to making also trinket baskets and plaques of the peculiar 
wrapped weave, beautifully ornamented with realistic and geomet- 
rical designs in the black and white weft of grass. This art came 
to Tom's people from the Nitinats or Southern Nootka, who in 
turn owe it to the Makah of Cape Flattery. Trade with the whites 
is the chief incentive in the making of these finer specimens of 
basketry. 

Nowadays the Nootka live in small frame houses, a family, in 
our narrower sense of the word, to a house. It was not so when 
Tom was young. The village of Hikwis, in which he was raised, 
consisted of a row of long plank houses, each constructed on a heavy 
quadrangular frame of posts, which were the trimmed trunks of 
cedars, and of crossbeams of circular section resting on the posts. 
The roofing and walls were of cedar planks, running lengthwise of 
the house. The floor was the bare earth, stamped smooth, and a 
slightly raised platform ran along the rear and the long sides of the 
house. On the inner floor one or more fires were built, the smoke 
escaping through openings in the roof, provided by merely shoving 
a roofing plank or two to a side. Tom early learned not to stand 
erect in the house any more than he could help. The smoke cir- 
culating in the upper reaches of the house, particularly in rainy 
weather when the smoke-hole rafters were closed, was trying to the 
eyes, and people found it convenient to sit or crouch on the floor as 
much as possible. Some of the houses, like the one in which Tom 
was brought up, had paintings or carvings referring to the crests 
or legendary escutcheons of the chief of the tribe, tribal subdivision, 
or house group. In Tom's house the main escutcheons were two 
Thunder-birds, face to face, painted on the outside of the wall 
planks; a series of round holes cut in the roof, and one in front that 
served as a door, all representing moons; and paintings of wolves on 
the boards that ran below the platforms. The chief of the house 
group, together with his immediate family, occupied the rear of 
the house; other families of lesser rank, kin to the chief by junior 
lines of descent, occupied various positions along the sides. Slaves 
were also housed in the long communal dwelling. They were not, 
like the middle class, undistinguished relations of the chief's families, 
but strangers, captured in war or bartered off like any chattels. The 



Sayach'apis, a Nootka Trader 



3«7 



mat beds of the individual families were made on the platforms and 
were screened off from one another as required. 

In such a house Tom early learned his exact relationship to all 
his kinsmen. He soon learned also the degree of his relationship 
to the neighboring house groups. He applied the terms "brother" 
and "sister" not only to his immediate brothers and sisters but to 
his cousins, near and remote, of the same generation. He dis- 
tinguished, among all these remoter brothers and sisters, "older" and 
"younger," not according to their actual ages in relation to his own, 
but according to whether they belonged to lines of descent that were 
senior or junior to his own. Primogeniture, he gradually learned, 
both of self and progenitor, meant superiority in rank and privilege. 
Hence the terms "older" and "younger," almost from the beginning, 
took on a powerful secondary tinge of "superior" and "inferior." 
The absurdity of calling some little girl cousin, perhaps ten years 
his junior, his "older sister" was for him immensely less evident 
because of his ever present consciousness of her higher rank. As 
Tom grew older, he became cognizant of an astonishing number of 
uncles and aunts, grandfathers and grandmothers, of endless 
brothers-in-law — far and near. He was very much at home in the 
world. Wherever he turned, he could say, "Younger brother, come 
here!" or "Grandfather, let me have this." The personal names of 
most of his acquaintances were hardly more than tags for calling 
out at a distance, or at ceremonial gatherings. 

Along with his feeling of personal relationship to individuals 
there grew up in Tom a consciousness of the existence of tribal sub- 
divisions in the village. The Ts'isha'ath tribe, with which he was 
identified by residence, kinship, and upbringing, proved really to 
be a cluster of various smaller tribal units, of which the Ts'isha'ath, 
that gave their name to the whole, were the leading group. The 
other subdivisions Were originally independent tribes that had lost 
their isolated distinctness through conquest, weakening in numbers, 
or friendly removal and union. Each of the tribal subdivisions 
or "septs" had its own stock of legends, its distinctive privileges, 
its own houses in the village, its old village sites and distinctive 
fishing and hunting waters that were still remembered in detail by 
its members. Whhe the septs now lived together as a single tribe, 



308 



American Indian Life 



the basis of the sept division was really a traditional local one. 
The sept grouping was perhaps most markedly brought to light at 
ceremonial gatherings. Tom learned in time that of all the honored 
seats recognized at a feast, a certain number of contiguous seats in the 
rear of the house belonged to representatives of the Ts'isha'ath sept, 
a certain number of others at the right corner in the rear to those 
of another sept, and so on. Thus, the proper ranking of the septs 
was ever kept before the eye by the definite assignment of seats of 
higher and lower rank. 

But it must not be supposed that Tom's childhood and youth were 
spent entirely in work and in the acquirement of social and ceremo- 
nial knowledge. On the contrary, what interested him at least as 
much as sociology was play. He spun his tops — rather clumsy 
looking, two-pegged tops they were — threw his gaming spears in 
the spear and grass game and in the hoop-rolling game, hit feathered 
billets with a flat bat, threw beaver teeth dice (though this was 
chiefly a woman's game), and, when he grew older, took part in 
the favorite game of "lehal," the almost universal Western American 
guessing game, played with two or four gambling bones to the 
accompaniment of stirring songs. More properly belonging to the 
domain of sport was the somewhat dangerous game of canoe- 
upsetting, in which the contestants upset their canoes and quickly 
righted them at a hand-clap signal. This was an especially 
favored game of Tom's. All through his life, up to the time that he 
lost his sight, he was as instinctively familiar with the run of water, 
the dip and lurch of a canoe, and the turn of a paddle, as with the 
movements of walking on the land. Indeed, for days on end, at cer- 
tain seasons, his life flowed on insistently to the very rhythm of rising 
and falling wave. 

In at least one class of activities and beliefs Tom constantly re- 
ceived definite instruction from his father and maternal uncle. This 
was the world of unseen things, the mysterious domain of magic, of 
supernaturally compelling act and of preventive tabu. There were 
hundreds of things he must be careful to do or to avoid if he would 
have success in hunting and fishing, if he would be certain that unseen 
but ever present powers favor him in his pursuits or, at the least, de- 
sist from visiting harm upon him. He must be particularly careful 
not to anger the supernatural powers, among whom are to be counted 



Sayach'apis, a Nootka Trader 



309 



the fish and mammals of the sea, by contamination with unclean 
things — and most obnoxious of all unclean things is the presence or 
influence of a menstruating or pregnant woman. For instance, a 
sealer or hunter of sea lions must not drag his canoe down to the 
water's edge, but have it carried over, as otherwise it might run over 
offal or some spot through which a menstruating woman had passed, 
and thus carry with it a scent that would frighten away the game. 
And one must be careful about his speech when hunting on the sea. 
A curious example of this is the fiction by which fur seal hunting is 
spoken of as gathering driftwood, the fur seal himself being referred 
to as "the one that sits yonder under a tree." It would not do to let 
him know too precisely what is going on while he is being hunted! 
The various tabus that Tom has learnt and practised in the course of 
his life are almost without number, and his practical success and 
longevity he ascribes in no small measure to his religious observance 
of them all. 

The tabus are largely preventive measures. But Tom learned that 
there are more positive ways of working one's will in the world of 
magic. One of these is the use of certain amulets on the person, hid- 
den in the house or woods, or in connection with hunting and fishing 
implements. As a general good-luck amulet, Tom was fond of wear- 
ing in his hat the spine of the "rat-fish." When his father was about 
to die, he called Tom to him and whispered in his ear an important 
secret. This was that the chief life-guarding amulet of the family 
had been a fire drill that was secreted at the bottom of an old box 
filled with all sorts of odds and ends. Its efficacy depended largely 
on the fact that hardly anybody knew of it. In general, secrecy 
helps tremendously in the power of all magic objects and formulae. 
An Indian likes to withhold as much as possible, even from his near- 
est kin, until economic urgency or the approach of death compels 
him to transmit the magical knowledge to some one that is near and 
dear to him. Some of his most powerful amulets Tom would secrete 
in the canoe or hide under the cherry bark wrappings around the 
hafts of his hunting spears. These amulets were of all sorts, but 
chiefly fragments of supernatural animals— blind snakes, crabs, 
spiders, or the like — obtained in the woods. 

Some men are fortunate in getting power for hunting, fishing, 
wealth, love, doctoring, witchcraft, or whatever it may be, from 



3!0 American Indian Life 

supernatural beings or visitations. Amulets are often obtained in 
connection with these experiences, which regularly take place in 
mysterious or out-of-the-way places — the open sea, a remote island, 
the summit of a mountain, the heart of the woods, — and of all mys- 
teries, it is the mystery of the dark woods that most fascinates and 
inspires with dread the coast villager, so much at home on the sandy 
beach and on open sea spaces. The supernatural givers of power are 
a variegated and grotesque lot — mysterious hands pointing up out of 
the earth; the scaly, knife-tongued, lightning serpent; fairy-like be- 
ings; treacherous tree nymphs; hobgoblins; ogres; and strange hybrid 
animals that seem to have stepped out of nightmares. All these den- 
izens of the supernatural world have power to bestow that may not 
with impunity be refused. This power, once obtained, must be care- 
fully husbanded by the observance of requisite tabus. 

Tom has not had as many supernatural experiences as some men, 
but he has nevertheless been favored by two or three striking visita- 
tions. A gnome-like being of the beneficent, wealth-giving class 
known as Chimimis, once appeared to him as he was sitting out at 
dusk in company with two other men. Though these companions 
had their eyes directed at the Chimimis, they could not perceive him. 
Tom alone, speechless with astonishment, saw him place two spears 
on the roof of the house, "walk off to the neighboring house, and dis- 
appear, so it seemed, in a log. When Tom came to himself, he 
scraped off those .parts of the spear shafts that the hand of the Chim- 
imis had gripped. He preserved the scrapings as an amulet and, in 
time, became one of the wealthiest men of his tribe. 

At another time Tom obtained power from a supernatural being 
known as "Full-eyed," a diminutive, brownie-like creature. He was 
lying very ill in the house, gazing steadfastly at the fire, when the 
popping up of a little cinder caused him to raise his eyes. He saw 
what seemed to be a child circling the fire in a counter-clockwise 
direction, which is the exact opposite of the Nootka direction in danc- 
ing. He knew immediately that it was Full-eyed. The brownie 
carried a small storage basket on his breast, and picked up from the 
floor anything he could lay his hands on. Though Tom had been 
unable to sit up straight, this supernatural experience infused him 
with such sudden strength that he was now easily able to sit up. 
He believed also that, from this time on, wealth rolled into his house 



Sayach'apis, a Nootka Trader 



3ii 



more rapidly than ever. The third of Tom's supernatural expe- 
riences was less striking than the other two, but apparently equally 
potent in its practical results. Tom was reclining on the sleeping 
platform of the house, in the dead of winter, when he observed a 
strange thing in one of the storage baskets on the box that marked the 
head of his bed. He noticed that a big black bumblebee gave birth 
to an infant bee. This seemed remarkable and evidently significant 
in view of the fact that the young bees ordinarily come into being in 
the summer, only. Because Tom was sole witness to so strange an 
occurrence, he was more than ever favored in the accumulation of 
wealth. 

Such extraordinary occurrences as these are clearly in the nature 
of accidents; they cannot be relied upon for the necessary aid in the 
successful prosecution of life's work. The standard, and on the 
whole, the most useful means of securing this necessary aid is by the 
performance of secret rituals. Nothing came to one who did not un- 
dergo considerable hardship in training. This Tom learned early in 
life. If he wished to be a successful fisherman, or a hunter of sea 
mammals, or a land hunter, he had to retire at certain seasons to secret 
places in the woods, known only to the respective families that fre- 
quented them. Here, for days on end, he would bathe, rub himself 
down with hemlock branches until the skin tingled with pain, pray to 
the Sky Chief for long life and success, and, most important of all, 
carry out secret, magical performances based on the principle of 
imitation. If he wished to obtain power in sealing, he would build 
effigies of twigs representing the seal, the harpooning outfit, and the 
hunting canoe. The aspirants for success would dramatize the future 
hunt in its magical setting. He himself performed imitative actions 
and offered continuous prayers for success. These periods of prep- 
aration tested physical endurance to the utmost; fasting, continuous 
wakefulness, sexual continence, and the observance of all sorts of ta- 
bus formed part of the training. There was little that one could not 
learn to do, if only he were hardy enough to undergo the necessary 
magical preparation. Such young men as were fired with extraor- 
dinary ambitions, say unusual success in whaling or the acquire- 
ment of potent shamanistic power, would train the will and chasten 
the cries of the flesh for incredibly long periods, their spiritual eye 
fixed singly on the austerities of magical procedure. 



312 



American Indian Life 



Tom never devoted himself to unusual rigors in the acquirement of 
magical power. He contented himself with the normal routine en- 
joined upon those planning to seal, to spear salmon, to troll, to catch 
halibut with hooks, to spear cod with the aid of decoys, to accumulate 
wealth, to prepare for ritualistic performances, and to obtain enough 
shamanistic power to withstand the attempts of evil-minded people 
to bewitch him. He never ventured upon the more difficult and ex- 
hausting procedures required to make a successful whaler or hunter 
of sea lions. Of the more unusual types of secret ritual, Tom 
attempted but one. When past middle-age, he was fired with the 
ambition to learn how to interpret the speech of ravens. The ravens 
are believed to be the supernatural messengers of the wolves, the most 
austere and eerie of all beings, in the belief of the Nootka. Could 
Tom have learned to unravel the mysteries concealed in the croakings 
of these supernatural birds, there is little doubt that he would have 
been able to advance in ritual power far beyond his fellow tribes- 
men. Unfortunately he found the quest of this difficult knowledge 
too exhausting, too baffling. Tom acknowledges his failure with a 
sigh. 

The secret rituals could only be performed at auspicious periods, 
when the moon was waxing and when the days were becoming pro- 
gressively long. It was for this reason that Tom was always very 
careful to keep track of the passage of time, of the recurrence of the 
moons. If some neighbor, less wise and observant, committed the 
error of taking one moon for another and of performing magical rit- 
uals out of season, Tom would say nothing. He would smile and 
keep counsel with himself, knowing well that his neighbor's efforts 
when the hunting season came around, were doomed to failure. 
While Tom was one of those that never went out of his way to be- 
witch his neighbors or to spoil their luck, he was naturally not al- 
together displeased when they put themselves at a disadvantage. It 
was none of his business to correct them, to strengthen the hands of 
possible rivals. 

Medicine men gained their power in a manner perfectly analogous 
to all other quests for magical assistance. The difference was simply 
that they sought aid of such beings as were known to grant power to 
cure diseases and to counteract witchcraft. The material guardians 
and amulets obtained by medicine men, generally certain birds and 



Sayach'apis, a Nootka Trader 313 

rarer fish, were locked away in their breasts. When required for the 
detection of sickness, for the cure of the diseased, or for the overcom- 
ing of an evil opponent, they could be called upon to fly invisibly to 
the desired goal and to return at will. Tom himself obtained a mod- 
icum of power from the mallard ducks, but not enough to warrant his 
considering himself a regular practitioner. He had, also, a certain 
inherited, shamanistic power, or rather privilege, that came to him 
from a Xitinat ancestor. This is why at public shamanistic per- 
formances which form part of the Ts'ayek cult, Tom's oldest son has 
the right to initiate shamanistic novices at a certain point in the 
ceremonial procedure, though he himself is not a practising medicine 
man. 

Many Xootka are accused of gaining power to bewitch their en- 
emies or rivals, whether by the handling of their food, nail parings, 
and body effluvia, or by the pronouncing of direful spells in connec- 
tion with the name and effigy of the hated person. Tom never in- 
dulged in such mean spirited pursuits, but he is very sure that many 
of his acquaintances have done so. It is the constant fear of witch- 
craft that even to this day causes the Indians to keep many dugs 
around the house, and to lock their doors securely at night. The bark- 
ing of the dogs is useful in calling attention to malevolent "pains 11 or 
minute disease objects that wander about, particularly at night, while 
the locking of doors is essential in denying these objects an entrance. 

The great supernatural beings of Nootka belief, such as the Sky- 
Chief, the Thunder-bird, and the Wolves, loomed very large in Tom's 
life, whether in prayer or in ritual. Certain Nootka are more deeply 
religious than others. They are more fervent in their prayers and 
thev work themselves up to a greater ecstasy in the performance of 
rituals that are sacred to divine powers. In contrast to men of this 
type, Tom has always been rather sober, not a skeptic by any means, 
but not an emotional enthusiast. His knowledge of religious cer- 
emonials is vast, but the spirit that animates this knowledge is rather 
one of order, of legal particularity, not of spiritual ecstasy. The 
practical economical world, the pursuit of gain, has always been more 
congenial to Tom's temperament. This does not mean that Tom is 
a rationalist in matters relating to the unseen world. Only the ed- 
ucated or half-educated half-breeds are rationalists, and more than 
one of them has angered Tom by his ill-advised attempts to disturb 



314 American Indian Life 

him with skeptical arguments. However, there has been no change 
in Tom. He knows, as firmly as he knows his own name, that when 
the rumble of thunder is heard from the mountain, it is because the 
Thunder-bird is leaving his house on the peak, flapping his wings 
heavily, as he makes off for the sea to prey upon the whales. He 
knows also that when those that are not blind like himself tell him 
that there has been a flash of lightning, it is because the Thunder-bird 
has dropped the belt wound about his middle. This belt is the light- 
ning serpent, zig-zagging down to the earth or coiling in a flash 
around a cedar tree. 

Aside from the elementary problem of making his living, a Noot- 
ka's main concern is to earn the esteem of his fellow tribesmen by a 
lavish display of wealth. It is not enough for him to accumulate it 
and to live in private ease. He must, from time to time, invite the 
other families of his tribe, and the neighboring tribes, to public cere- 
monies known as potlatches, in which one or more of the important 
privileges to which he is entitled are shown and glorified by the dis- 
tribution of property to the guests. The exhibiting of privileges 
may take several forms. The most important of them refer to 
ancestral crests, which may be shown in a dramatic performance, 
as a picture on a board, or latterly, on canvas, or symbolized in a 
dance. Ceremonial games are another frequent type of exhibitions 
of privileges at certain potlatches. Nearly all privileges have their 
proper songs, which are themselves jealously guarded privileges, and 
which are sung on these occasions. 

There are two considerations that make the public performance of 
the more important privileges a matter of the greatest moment. In 
the first place, a man must clearly indicate his right to its performance 
by recounting the origin myth that it dramatizes, and by tracing his 
personal connection with the originator of the privilege. In the se- 
cond place, he must be careful to distribute at least as much property 
as has already been distributed in his family, in connection with the 
public presentation of the privilege. If it is at all possible, he will 
try to exceed the record, so as to add to the public prestige not only of 
himself and his immediate family, but of the privilege itself. Should 
he fail in either of these essential respects, he is shamed. Hence, an 
important potlatch is not to be lightly undertaken. It requires much 
careful thought and preparation, and it necessitates the gathering of 



Sayach'apis, a Nootka Trader 



315 



enough wealth to pay for all the services rendered by singers and 
other assistants, to present substantial gifts to the guests, and to feed 
the crowd of men, women and children that are present at the cere- 
mony. 

A potlatch is not often given as a mere display of wealth. Nearly 
always it is combined with some definite social or religious function, 
such as the giving of a name, the coming to marriageable age of a 
daughter, marriage, a mourning ceremony, the Wolf ritual, or a doc- 
toring ceremony. Potlatching in its fundamental sense, in other 
words the giving away of property to the guests, is an essential of 
practically all ceremonies, big or little, religious or profane. Every 
potlatch involves at least three parties, the giver, the guest or guests, 
and the person in whose honor the potlatch is given. The last of 
these is generallv some young member of the family whose prestige is 
thus furthered early in life, but it may be a stranger who has done the 
giver a service. There are different kinds of gifts. Certain of them 
are ceremonial grants to which the highest in rank of the tribe are 
entitled, but which they are expected to return with one hundred per 
cent interest at a subsequent potlatch. Another class of gifts, which 
feature the most important and picturesque part of the potlatch. is 
made to the highest in rank among the guests. There is no rigid 
rule as to the return of these gifts, but in practice they are nearly al- 
ways liquidated at a return potlatch, with gifts of an equal, and in 
many cases greater, value. Finally, towards the end of the potlatch, 
there is a general distribution of smaller amounts to the crowd. Less 
careful account is taken of the return of such gifts than of the first 
two types. In part, the giving of a potlatch amounts to an invest- 
ment of value, though it is doubtful whether, among the Nootka, the 
greater part of the expenditure incurred at a potlatch ever returned 
to its owner. 

A potlatch serves not only a definite social and economic purpose 
for its giver, but affords, as well, an opportunity for minor distribu- 
tions of property, such as public payments for services, on the part of 
other individuals present. Indeed any announcements of impor- 
tance, such as the handing over of a privilege or a change in name, 
would be most appropriately made at a potlatch. The assembled 
tribesmen and guests were, to all intents and purposes, witnesses to 
such announcements. 



3i6 



American Indian Life 



Tom began to give potlatches on his own account when still quite 
a young man. The first one of any importance that he was respon- 
sible for, was a potlatch in honor of his niece's husband. This was 
a man of low birth, whom Tom had vowed to have nothing to do 
with. When his niece, however, gave birth to a child, Tom relented 
and, in order to wash away the stain on his family's honor, he called 
together thirty of his relatives, and distributed four guns and a blan- 
ket to each. He also sang two of his privileged songs, which he then 
and there transferred to the child as its due privilege. This potlatch 
not only marked a reconcilement with his low-born nephew, but gave 
the little youngster a fair start in life in the race for status. The 
next of Tom's potlatches was a Wolf ritual, in which he himself per- 
formed two of the ceremonial dances, those of the Thunder-bird and 
the Wolf circling about on all fours. 

Some time after this, Tom resolved to marry a Ts'isha'ath girl 
named Witsah. In spite of the fact that she was a member of his own 
tribe, Tom wooed the girl not as a Ts'isha'ath, but as a member of a 
Nitinat tribe, among whom he had kinsmen on his father's side. As 
his own father was dead, he had ten of his Nitinat uncles woo the 
girl on his behalf. The wooing is always an important part of the 
marriage preliminaries, and consists chiefly in the placing of objects, 
symbolizing one or more of the privileges of the suitor, outside the 
house of the girl's family. The suitor himself is not present. Some- 
times the objects are refused, when the suit may be continued until an 
acceptance is gained, though this does not necessarily follow. The 
suitor privileges deposited by Tom's representatives consisted of ten 
fires and a carving, representing the lightning serpent. These were 
accepted and returned to Tom's uncle as an indication of willingness 
on the part of the bride's parents to proceed with the marriage cere- 
mony. Not long after the return of the privileges, the marriage 
ceremony was celebrated among the Ts'isha'ath people. The money 
distributed at that time by Tom and his Nitinat relatives constituted 
a bridal purchase, but when Tom's first child was born, the property 
then distributed was returned to Tom and the Nitinats with interest. 

The greater part of the marriage ceremony consists of the perform- 
ance of ceremonial games, each of which is accompanied by special 
songs, and followed by distributions of property. These games sym- 
bolize the difficulty of obtaining the hand of the bride, referring as 



Sayach'apis, a Nootka Trader 



317 



they do to legendary tests that suitors were compelled to undergo in 
the past, before they could be admitted by the bride's father. One 
of the tests, for instance, might be the lifting of an especially heavy 
stone, or standing for some time without flinching between two fires. 
According to legendary theory such tests should be endured by the 
bridegroom himself, but in actual ceremonial practice any one of the 
bridegroom's party may be the winner in the contest, and receive the 
prize from the bride's father or whoever of her people is the proud 
possessor of that particular marriage-game privilege. 

Some time after his marriage Tom gave two potlatches in a single 
month. The first of these was a puberty potlatch in behalf of a 
younger sister of his. The second was a birth feast or, as the Nootka 
term it a "navel feast" for his first child, a boy. About a year later 
Tom invited the Ucluelet people, one of the Nootka tribes, to a feast 
at which many dance privileges were performed and much property 
distributed. By this time Tom was getting to be pretty well known 
among the tribes of the west coast of Vancouver Island, for his rap- 
idly growing wealth and for his potlatches. It was, therefore, no 
surprise to him, though it proved very gratifying, to have the chief of 
the Ahousat, one of the most powerful of the northern Nootka tribes, 
especially invite him to a potlatch at which he was given four of the 
chief's ceremonial songs. In return, Tom gave a potlatch to the 
Ahousat and the Comox, a tribe of alien speech from the east coast of 
the Island. He distributed four hundred blankets to the former, 
three hundred to the latter. 

A year or two after this potlatch, occurred the decisive event in 
Tom's social career. This was the birth of his first daughter. The 
most magnificent Nootka potlatches are generally given in connection 
with a daughter's puberty ceremony. Ever since his marriage, Tom 
had been hoping to be able, in the fullness of time, to make a record 
in potlatching among his people, and to show his most valued priv- 
ileges at the puberty potlatch of a daughter. Now that he was ac- 
tually blessed by the arrival of a little girl, Tom's plans took imme- 
diate shape. He set about the accumulation of property with more 
zest than ever, driving many a sharp bargain with the Indians and 
whites, and he revolved frequently in his mind what tribes he was to 
invite, and what dramatic displays, dances and songs he was to use at 
the great ceremony. His first concern was to build a large house of 



3i8 



American Indian Life 



native construction that the guests were to enter when invited to the 
Ts'isha'ath people. Appropriate timbers for posts and beams are not 
easy to find, especially since the white man's sawmill has made its 
appearance in the country. Hence, Tom was indefatigable in mak- 
ing inquiries of various persons and keeping his eye out for suffi- 
ciently large and conveniently located cedars. As he found such 
trees, he had them felled, hauled up to the Ts'isha'ath village along 
the Somass river, and put in place as opportunity presented itself. 
The actual construction of the house was thus spread over a period of 
some ten or fifteen years. 

At one time an unfortunate casualty occurred. One of the heavy 
crossbeams fell to the ground, fortunately without injuring any one, 
but the event Was considered an ill omen. Nevertheless, Tom did 
the best he could to ward off the evil influence by having a dance per- 
formed in honor of the spirit of the beam. Special songs that he 
possessed for this purpose were sung at the time. 

Tom hoped that he could have the house completed before his 
daughter arrived at maturity. He was doomed to disappointment. 
His house still lacked one of the crossbeams and all the lighter wood- 
work, when his wife announced to him one morning that their 
daughter had come of age, was menstruating, in other words, for the 
first time. There was nothing for it but to have the puberty cer- 
emony performed at once, reserving the main puberty potlatch for a 
few months later. Tom painted his face red and invited the neigh- 
boring Hopach'as'ath tribe to the puberty ceremony, the "torches 
standing on the ground," as it is termed. 

This ceremony marks the beginning of the period of seclusion of 
the girl. She is painted and ornamented for the occasion, generally 
with legendary insignia belonging to the family, is made to stand in 
front of two long boards painted with representations of Thunder- 
birds and whales, and has water thrown four times at her feet. Four 
or ten poles, the so-called "torches," are lighted and later distributed 
with gifts to those entitled to receive them. Songs of various types 
are sung, particularly satirical songs twitting the opposite sex. Cere- 
monial games, some of them anticipating later marriage games, are 
also performed and prizes are distributed. After a general dis- 
tribution of goods, the guests depart, leaving the girl to fast for four 



Sayach'apis, a Nootka Trader 319 

days and to enter upon a secluded period of various tabus behind the 
painted boards in the rear of the house. 

After the puberty ceremony, Tom proceeded to Victoria to lay in 
his store of supplies for the impending potlatch. He bought an enor- 
mous number of boxes of biscuits, and to this day nothing pleases him 
more than to tell of how he compelled the white merchant to give him 
a special rate on the unusual order. As soon as the provisions were 
safely deposited at his village, Tom invited twelve tribes to his pot- 
latch. To the nearer tribes he sent messengers; the more remote 
tribes of the east coast he invited in person. When the appointed 
day arrived, the Ts'isha'ath found that they had on their hands by 
far the largest number of guests that had ever visited the tribe at a 
single time. It was the proudest moment of Tom's life. Everything 
went well. There was enough food for all, the distributions of prop- 
erty were generous, and all the privileges were interestingly pre- 
sented. There were a considerable number of these privileges per- 
formed, one or two of them being fairly elaborate dramatic rep- 
resentations that were new even to the most northern Nootka tribes, 
great potlatchers though they are. Tom's hereditary claim to the 
performances, the dances and the songs, was carefully explained by 
the ceremonial speaker. The ancestral legends were in every case re- 
counted at length. Tom's title to the special crests of the whale and 
the Thunder-bird was duly set forth. The explanation of the carved 
house posts took the speaker back to the creation of the first Ts'isha'ath 
man from the thigh of a woman. Due account, as usual in these 
origin legends, was taken of the flood. The potlatch securely estab- 
lished Tom's position among the Indians of the Island. To this day 
it is often referred to by the Ts'isha'ath and their neighbors. Tom's 
family was "put high" as never before. More than once, Tom's 
grandson has found himself, when visiting comparative strangers, say 
among the East Coast tribes, received with open arms and honored 
with gifts of great value, all on the strength of his grandfather's pot- 
latch. 

Tom's potlatching career did not end here. Some time later he 
invited the Kyuquot, a Nootka tribe adjoining the Kwakiutl. At 
this potlatch he gave a dramatic representation of a number of priv- 
ileges, including two Thunder-birds, a spouting whale, the super- 



320 



American Indian Life 



natural quartz-beings known as He'na, and a supernatural bird known 
as Mihtach, a sort of mallard duck that haunts the top of the mountain 
called "Two-bladders-on-its-summit." The Heshkwiat tribe of 
Nootka was the next to be invited to a potlatch. A year or two after 
this, the second greatest ceremonial event in Tom's career took place, 
in the form of his second Wolf ritual or Tlokwana. The ritual was 
given for the special benefit of his oldest son Douglas and his newly 
married wife. These were the chief initiates in the ritual. Cu- 
riously enough, Tom's little grandson, as yet unborn, was also ini- 
tiated. This is an extreme instance of the tendency of the Nootka 
Indians to heap honors upon their offspring at the earliest possible 
opportunity. 

The Wolf ritual is the most awesome, the most fascinating and 
fear-inspiring ceremony that the Nootka possess. Whatever reli- 
gious exaltation or frenzy they are capable of, finds expression in 
this elaborate ritual. The performance, which generally lasts eight 
days, preferably in the winter, is dominated throughout by the spirit 
of the wolves who are believed to be hovering near at the outskirts 
of the village. The more important parts of the ceremonial are open 
to only such members of the tribe as have been initiated. Many tabus 
must be observed by those participating, and an attitude of high- 
minded seriousness must be maintained throughout. In the old days, 
frivolity during the more strictly religious parts of the ritual, aside of 
course from the ceremonial buffoonery, was very severely punished 
by the marshaling attendants. Spearing to death on the spot was 
the penalty for infraction of the most sacred tabus. 

The ritual begins with the songs and other ceremonial activities of 
an ordinary potlatch. Rumors are set going of the appearance of 
wolves in the neighborhood of the village. These rumors, accen- 
tuated by tales of narrow escapes and bloody casualties, act power- 
fully upon the imagination of the children, who are soon reduced to a 
state of panic. All of a sudden the lights are extinguished, and the 
four "wolves" break through the side of the house. In the confusion 
that ensues they make off with the youngsters that are to be initiated. 
From this moment, begins the ritual proper. A certain number of 
the tribe have the hereditary privilege to "play wolf," that is, to act 
as wolves during certain parts of the ritual beyond the confines of the 
village, to make off with the novices, and keep these as supposed pris- 



Sayach'apis, a Nootka Trader 



321 



oners in the woods. For a number of days, there are supposed to be 
unsuccessful attempts to take back the captured novices, but the 
wolves remain obdurate until certain songs are sung, when the nov- 
ices are brought out in view of the people and the series of attacks 
finally succeeds in routing the wolves. The novices are supposed to 
be frenzied by the spirits of various supernatural beings that possess 
them. They must be brought back by force. Those privileged to 
do so lasso them, and, to the accompaniment of sacred songs, the 
struggling novices are conducted to the potlatch house, whistling 
furiously all the while. The hubbub of mingled whistling, drum- 
ming and simultaneous singing of many distinct ritual songs, con- 
tinues for the greater part of the night. The din is indescribable. 
During the following day is performed the most sacred episode in 
the ritual. The whistling spirits that possess the novices must be 
exorcised by means of sacred dances and songs. A purification cere- 
mony of bathing in the river or sea follows. The remainder of the 
ritual consists of the performance of a number of special dances, each 
of which is appropriate to the particular supernatural being that is 
supposed to have possessed one of the initiates. There are many of 
these dances, varying greatly in their prestige as privileges, and in 
their character of religious frenzy. Probably the most austere of the 
dances is that of the supernatural wolf, who crawls about in reckless 
pursuit of destruction and has to be restrained with great difficulty by 
a number of attendants. Other dances represent various types of 
woodsy creatures or ogres. Many of them are pantomimic rep- 
resentations of animals, while human activities of various kinds are 
represented in still others. 

With this Wolf ritual Tom's ceremonial activities gradually less- 
ened. He continued to take an active interest in whatever potlatches 
were given by his family, and he often helped with his advice and 
active cooperation in the singing of songs and the delivering of cere- 
monial addresses, particularly of the formal speeches of thanks. 
Now that he had done his share in establishing the glory of his family, 
Tom sat back and allowed his eldest son to take the initiative, at least 
in theory, in all ceremonies affecting their standing in the tribe. 

It is long since Tom has been able to do useful work. He is en- 
tirely dependent on his oldest son's family, with whom he lives, but 
they do not feel his presence to be a burden. For one thing, he is 



322 American Indian Life 

uniformly good-natured, very talkative about his own past and in 
judging his neighbors, and always ready to help with his advice in 
matters of importance, whether it be the preparations for a potlatch 
or some contested sealing claim. But back of the garrulous, shabby 
Tom of the present, looms up the Tom of the great potlatches of 
former days. It is to this Tom that his children and grandchildren 
almost entirely owe the high standing that they maintain among their 
people. 

When Tom dies he will be put in a coffin and buried in the ground. 
This was not the old Nootka custom. The more important families 
had caves in which their deceased members were put away; others 
were laid in burial boxes or rush mats which were then put up in trees 
back of the village. Near the place of the burial there would be put 
up a grave post, constructed of roof rafters of the house, on which 
would be painted one of the crests of the deceased. 

Though the old burial customs are no longer followed, some of 
the beliefs and practices attending death have not yet died out. Thus, 
the immediate personal effects of the deceased, as well as considerable 
additional property, are always destroyed. In the old days the whole 
house might be burned down, and tales are told of how the mourning 
survivors would move off to another spot to build them a new house. 
In all likelihood there will be performed immediately after Tom's 
death a ceremony intended to comfort the family of the deceased and 
to induce Tom's spirit to leave the house and its vicinity. Tom's 
soul will have left his body in the shape of a tiny shadow-like double 
of himself, through the crown of his head, to assume eventually the 
form of a full-fledged ghost. It is safe to assume that the tabu of the 
dead person's name will be carefully observed. Not only will Tom's 
name not be mentioned by his tribesmen for a stated period, but all 
words that involve the main element of his name will be carefully 
avoided. This element denotes the idea of "distant." People will 
have to get along as best they can without it, whether by beating 
about the bush, by stretching the meaning of some other element so 
as to enable it to take its place, or, if need be, by borrowing the cor- 
responding element, provided it be of different sound, from some 
other dialect. Wailing sounds will be heard in the village for some 
time after Tom's death, and it is very likely that at a mourning pot- 
latch a number of privileges belonging to the family, say four songs, 



Sayach'apis, a Nootka Trader 



323 



will be thrown away. Such privileges are tabued during the mourn- 
ing period. At the end of the mourning period, which may be any- 
thing from a year to ten, another potlatch is given by one of the fam- 
ily and the tabus are lifted. When that time arrives Tom's name 
will have passed into native history. The name Sayach'apis, 
"Stands-up-high-over-all," will then be freely referred to with pride 
or with envy. 

Edjward Sapir 



Windigo, a Chipewyan Story 



i 

BEHIND the Hudson's Bay Company's post at Fort Hearne, they were 
wrestling for wives. Forgotten were the words of Catholic priests 
on the sanctity of marriage, forgotten the precepts of Episcopal mis- 
sionaries. In the twinkling of an eye those high-flown, newfangled 
notions had been swept aside by the deep rooted usage of ancient da}s. 
The Indians had been peaceably playing at "Button, button, who has 
the button?" with half the spectators staking shirts and blankets on 
the issue of the game. The real fun started when drunken Ramsay 
MacCrae reeled into the crowd and hugged Blanche Lecouvreur. 
Her husband sent him staggering to the ground, but the toper rose 
and, thrusting his fingers into Lecouvreur's face, challenged him to an 
old-time combat for his spouse. 

There was no more guessing game after that, there was genuine 
sport. Ramsay was laid low, but he had set the example and another 
young swashbuckler fell foul of Casimir; and so it went on. There 
was nothing riotous about the affair, it was as nicely regulated as a 
prize fight. There was never more than one contest at a time for no 
one would miss part of the spectacle by engaging in a side show of 
his own. The wrestlers pulled each other about by the hair and ears, 
after the approved Athabaskan fashion before attempting other holds. 
What amusement when- Angus had thrown the gauntlet to little Gor- 
don and was on the point of carrying off buxom Peggy by default! 
But there was still more laughter when the crafty wag of the camp, 
supposed to be cowering in a hiding-place, popped out of his tent, 
his skull cropped, ears and body glistening with grease, and, seizing 
his handicapped adversary by his long locks, dragged him to the 
ground. Cries of encouragement and admiration filled the air. One 
wagered his gun on a friend's victory, another staked his net or tent. 
The women fought for, looked on stolidly while the battle was wag- 
ing, but when Ramsay had fallen, Blanche heaved a sigh of relief, 
and Peggy could not suppress a sneer at her would-be captor. 



326 



American Indian Life 



Others were hauled away whimpering, but with Marie every one 
knew that she was wailing only to satisfy the proprieties, for she was 
well rid of her brute of a husband who had nearly beaten her to 
death after his last journey. 

But the climax came when big Douglas thrust his paw in Pierre 
Villeneuve's face. To be sure, Louise was as comely as any young 
matron in or near the settlement, yet until now the bullies had re- 
frained from challenging her husband. Every one respected her for 
her virtue and her kindness; and every one, too, was fond of Pierre. 
He was such a harmless, easy-going, good-natured chap, so handy 
with packstrap and toboggan, a prime companion after a two days' 
trip without food, keeping up his blithe old ditty about "ma belle 
patrie" or warbling some native melody, when every one else was 
ready to sink down from exhaustion. But what was all that to crazy 
Douglas when he was in drink and lusting for a woman? He had 
the advantage of four inches in height, and of at least two stone in 
weight, — good enough reason for trying for a prize. Still, Pierre 
was no mean antagonist with his sinewy, agile frame and his widely 
famed strength of grip. Nor was it long before Douglas discovered 
that he had caught a tartar. Twice he was on the point of scoring, 
only to have Pierre wriggle unhurt from his grasp. At last a cry of 
anguish from Louise as the inevitable was about to happen. Douglas 
had lifted her husband and was about to hurl him to the ground. 
But then things happened quickly, no one knew how, and Douglas 
lay stretched out on the ground panting. He limped off with a 
sprained ankle, amidst the mocking and jubilations of Pierre's friends, 
while even his backers had sportsmanship enough to congratulate 
the conqueror. 

Then through the laughing, shouting, gesticulating crowd a Titanic 
figure elbowed his way. In the midst of the din and excitement the 
strange half-breed's approach had passed unnoticed. He had arrived 
only yesterday, with a letter of credit from the Company of Gentle- 
men and Adventurers' Trading into Hudson's Bay. His name was 
George MacDonald; beyond that nothing was known about him. 
What a frame was his! Beside it, huge Douglas looked puny. 
Pierre seemed a mere babe. MacDonald was not a man of many 
words. He strode towards Louise, lightly touched her arm and said, 
"I want you." She shrank back shrieking, and Pierre rushed at the 



Windigo, a Chipewyan Story 327 

giant in a blind fury, only to be firmly grasped and gently deposited 
on the ground. Once more he leaped at his conqueror but was 
caught in a vise-like grip and laid low again, raging and impotent. 
In his madness he unsheathed his knife, but now Casimir and Gordon 
pinioned his arms and the crowd shouted, "Peace, peace! The stran- 
ger has won fairly!" 

MacDonald stood there calm and supercilious. "I have won," 
he said to Louise, "come." Without looking back he walked towards 
his tent, and the woman followed sobbing. That was the last wres- 
tling bout that day. 

II 

MacDonald stayed at Fort Hearne and built himself a cabin at the 
other end of the post. He went off for a few days and returned with 
a retinue of Slaveys. Then he began trading against the Company 
itself. He had a way of dealing with the Indians that no other man 
had. He paid less, rather than more, for their furs, and disdained to 
coddle them with gifts and favors. Yet, when the peltry hunters 
caught a silver fox or some other valuable fur, the prize went to the 
gruff giant's shack rather than to the Company's warehouse. There 
was no competing with him. One factor was sent to relieve another, 
but without avail. At last the Commissioner himself braved the 
journey to the Port, bought out MacDonald, and set him up as head 
of the post. 

Now, things began to hum at Fort Hearne. Never had such a fac- 
tor been seen as MacDonald. He spoke Dogrib and Chipewyan 
and Cree and French as well as his father's Orkney Island brogue: 
there was no hunter for hundreds of miles with whom he could not 
converse in his own tongue. He was on his feet from morning un- 
til night and kept every one else on the go. As a freetrader he had 
beaten the Company at its own game. With the Company's prestige 
behind him he allowed no freetrader to raise his head. By fair 
means none could compete, and who dared try force or trickery 
against MacDonald? In the long winter evenings, when boresome 
hours of sloth were whiled away with story telling, strange tales be- 
gan to circulate about the big factor. Since little or nothing was 
known of his early life, imagination ran riot. Angus knew that the 
factor could transform himself into a wolf, and hunt deer thus dis- 



328 



American Indian Life 



guised. Casimir pictured him in his youth, pulling cargo-laden 
scows, single-handed, that were wont to be towed by a half-dozen 
strapping Indians. Jean had it from an aunt that MacDonald had 
once swum a river in pursuit of a bear, had stabbed it with a knife 
and carried the carcass twenty miles to camp. Some said he was 
bulletproof, and others with a tincture of Christian lore spoke of his 
pact with the devil. He grew into the central figure of a new 
mythology. 

The hero himself moved across his stage with the saturnine gran- 
deur of a Norse god. He never boasted, never faltered, never failed. 
He ran unscathed through rapids never attempted since two parties 
of canoemen had been capsized and drowned. He walked toward 
the cocked gun of a drink-crazed competitor, and calmly knocked it 
out of his hand. MacDonald did not know what it was to be afraid. 

Between the trader and Pierre a curious relationship developed. 
The factor of course used men as pawns, and knew a good lieuten- 
ant when he saw one. But for Pierre he showed more consideration 
than was due to even the best of assistants. Perhaps it was because 
Louise prompted kindness to her former husband; perhaps there was 
some spontaneous sentimentalism for a man he had wronged. How- 
ever that might be, Pierre became a sort of attendant-in-ordinary on 
MacDonald, his companion on trips of inspection and the rarer 
jaunts of pleasure. 

For Pierre, his sullen, imperious master became the one and only 
subject of interest. He studied his habits and gestures and speech. 
He had set out eager to detect weakness, but his prying skepticism 
had changed to grudging admiration, and later to despondent amaze- 
ment. He had begun by hating his wife's abductor, and he came to 
hate with an ever intenser hatred the man who was without peer. It 
was not merely the giant's strength or dauntless courage, it was the 
way he had with men. How he ordered about Casimir or Angus or 
Ramsay! A word was enough to quell rebellion. Again and again, 
in the beginning, Pierre had resolved to bid him defbnce. yet when 
the moment came his resolution had failed. Yes, people liked 
Pierre and after a fashion they respected him, but that was a differ- 
ent thing. It was not in him to issue commands to others. If he ever 
mustered courage to do so, they would think he was putting on airs 
and laugh in his face, so that he would slink oft in shame and humil- 



Windigo, a Chipewyan Story 



329 



iation. Why were men born so different? Why was he not born 
superior to the rest, like MacDonald? Why born at all only to be 
lorded over by another? Thus he brooded and brooded for hours at 
night, losing all hope and joy in life. 

Then one day, unexpectedly, his despair was lifted. He had been 
on a fruitless hunting trip with the factor, and the two were approach- 
ing the post at the close of a rainy day. They were walking through 
a dense wood. Both were drenched to the skin, and Pierre was nearly 
exhausted. Suddenly, odd fancies crossed his mind. Weird tales 
of childhood, retold round many a winter camp fire, surged in mem- 
ory and would not down. At dark, the forest was peopled with mys- 
terious beings. The Windigo were about then — cadaverous shapes 
with glaring eyes, and feeders on human flesh. They lurked in the 
shadows of trees, and rose upon wayfarers from the depths of the 
swamps. What chance of escape when they had once sighted a 
victim? Rattling their skeletons, they flitted after him faster than 
a hawk can fly, tore him apart like a rabbit or swallowed him whole. 
The very wood Pierre was now traversing had been once entered by 
a trapper who was never seen again. Pierre began to feel oppressed 
by a sense of uncanniness. He peered cautiously into the gathering 
darkness, then glanced eagerly behind him. He was glad Mac- 
Donald was near. The great man could protect him if any one 
could. Pierre felt reassured, yet it was best to take no chances, 
so he hurried on. 

Of a sudden there was a snapping of boughs, and he heard his 
name called as if in mockery as a long form swished through the 
wood, and a grim face was gaping at him not ten feet away. He 
turned in horror and fled towards MacDonald, crying, "Windigo! 
Windigo!" as he pointed at a spot ahead. But MacDonald did 
not smite the ogre with one of his huge fists, or seek to grapple with 
it as he was said to have once wrestled with a bear. His face 
turned an ashen hue, his mighty body was quivering like an aspen. 
That was the half-breed of it. Then with a bound he ran through 
the wood as fast as his legs would carry him, down to the river 
bank and along the rocky water front, till at length he caught sight 
of the big warehouse. There he paused panting, with the cold 
perspiration on his forehead. Pierre had followed as swiftly as 
he could, and at last overtook his master. Both were trembling 



330 



American Indian Life 



from head to foot and MacDonald kept muttering, "Windigo! 
Windigo!" Thus they walked toward the Fort. And Pierre felt 
happier than he had ever been since that wrestling bout when he 
had lost Louise: for all his way, MacDonald was afraid of the 
Windigo! 

Ill 

Casimir was dangerously ill. His appetite was gone and his 
limbs seemed paralyzed. There came rumors that a famous Cree 
doctor was visiting the Chipewyan of a nearby settlement, and 
Pierre was dispatched to lure him to Fort Hearne with promise of 
fabulous fees. The Cree consented. He was a garrulous old 
man and on their joint trip Pierre tried to sound him about his 
powers, but on that subject he was mum. "You will see," he 
answered, and Pierre was obliged to wait. 

When they arrived at the Fort, the medicine man erected a little 
booth and had himself thrust in, with his hands and feet firmly 
tied. He sang his incantations and the lodge began to shake. It 
seemed filled with strange beings, for unearthly sounds were heard, 
followed by a death-like silence. Opening the lodge they saw the 
conjuror unbound, and as if awakening from a trance. He pro- 
claimed that the spirits had visited him and declared that Casimir 
would recover. Next, the patient himself was stretched out in the 
booth and the doctor entered it, stripped stark naked. He knelt 
and sang and blew at Casimir's heart, sucked at his breasts, and 
talked as if with his guardian spirits. Then he swallowed a stick 
three feet long, and retched it up again, announcing that all was 
well. In sooth, Casimir was carried from the tent clamoring for 
food, and in a week he was able to walk about. Then his kin 
showered gifts on the great magician, and all the other Indians 
sought to curry favor with him by every manner of attention, 

Pierre was less ostentatious than others in his entertainment of 
the old sage, but sometimes when the rest were fast asleep he would 
steal to the conjuror's tent with liquor and tobacco, to ply him with 
questions about the magic art. And after a while his host's reti- 
cence waned. He even confessed to having bewitched a rival by 
drawing his image on the ground with an arrow pointed at his 
heart. Yet when Pierre hinted that he, too, had a strong enemy on 



Windigo, a Chipewyan Story 



331 



whom he would fain cast a spell, the old fox hedged and said that 
sorcery was a dangerous business. Some men had power of their 
own, and could hurl the evil charm back with redoubled force 
against the sorcerer. Besides, he himself was old and wanted to 
live his few years in peace. , 

When Pierre found it hopeless to make the Cree bewitch his 
master, he changed his tactics. What was the truth about the 
Windigo? He had heard his mother tell about them, but did they 
really exist? That proved a less delicate subject for the medicine 
man. He himself had never seen a Windigo, but he knew all about 
them from another conjuror. Yes, the Windigo were dangerous 
spirits and fearfully strong. How strong? Surely no stronger 
than the factor? Why, they would rend him asunder like a dry 
twig. They swooped down upon men to tear out their vitals, and 
played ball with their skulls. There was a way to gain their favor, 
but it was very hard. If one fasted for three or four days in a 
wood they haunted, and freely offered them of one's flesh, they were 
pleased and might adopt him as their child. True, they were likely 
to swallow the sufferer whole, but when they spewed him out he 
was like one of themselves ever after, fierce and cannibalistic. The 
other Indians had better keep a wide berth of such as these, or 
placate them by gifts lest they break loose and destroy every one in 
sight. And now Pierre himself recalled a gaunt man who had ter- 
rorized the camp of his childhood, and whose bare glance had 
thrown timid folk into convulsions. 

Pierre slipped home and sat musing for a long time. Should 
he tempt the spirits of the woods? Would they answer his prayer? 
What if they ate him before he could make his offering? Yet, why 
should he live? He had lost Louise; and her captor was master of 
Fort Hearne. Life mattered not, unless the Windigo chose to bless 
him. 

The next day he entered the wood he had traversed with 
MacDonald that memorable evening. He ate not a morsel of food 
all day, and continued his fast next day, praying to the Windigo. 
At last he mustered up courage, gashed his chest with a big knife, 
and offered his body to the spirits. Then he fell down in a dead 
swoon. When he woke up, there was joy in his heart for all his pain. 
A Windigo had really come and blessed him! It had seized him as 



332 American Indian Life 

a boy seizes a moth, but when it saw the blood streaming from his 
breast it took pity on him, swallowed and disgorged him. Next 
spring he was to wreak vengeance as a Windigo. He must merely 
bide his time. 

As he walked homeward, he exulted in his new powers. Why 
not try them for a joke? He, too, would show people his strength 
now. The first man he encountered he would terrify into fits. 
Yonder was Angus, mending a net in front of his tent. He would 
do as well as the next. Pierre quickly stepped up to him, and assum- 
ing a ferocious grimace, he cried, "I am Windigo! I have come to 
eat you!" 

But Angus burst into a guffaw, "You a Windigo! You, who 
never hurt a fly! You are crazy. You've been drinking. Go 
home and sleep it off!" Pierre slunk home like a whipped cur, and 
threw himself on his bed crestfallen and humiliated. The Windigo 
had blessed him, yet he could not be Windigo. It was not in him. 
Even the Windigo could help only men like MacDonald. Thus 
he lay in impotent grief till exhaustion brought sleep. Then the 
Windigo loomed in sight and whispered, "In the spring, fool! I 
said, in the spring!" 

IV 

Spring came, and word reached Fort Hearne that the factor was 
to meet a fleet of scows at Fort Batise. That was a post he had 
never visited, so he summoned Pierre to make ready for the trip as 
his guide. They laid in an ample stock of provisions, for it was 
a long journey and there might be a protracted wait for the boats at 
their destination: Hudson's Bay Company transports do not run on 
schedule time. One fine morning the two men set out in a canoe, 
struggling up-stream against the powerful current. Now and then 
they landed to shoot some partridges, and one day MacDonald killed 
a moose. Otherwise there was little to relieve the monotony of the 
journey. From morning till night, not a soul crossed their path. 
With MacDonald lapsing into his wonted silence, hours would pass 
without a sound but the splashing of the paddles and the quaint, 
plaintive notes of Pierre's Red River melodies. Once in a while 
an abandoned site, with tent poles standing, suggested former human 
occupation. Every night the two men camped near the water edge, 



Windigo, a Chipewyan Story 



333 



played a game or two of cribbage, and then stretched out to rest 
till four or five o'clock the next morning. And in the night Pierre 
would hear strange sounds, and as they grew nearer they turned into 
words: "In the spring! In the spring!" 

When they reached Fort Batise, the post was all but deserted. 
The Company's trader had gone on a hunting trip and the dozen 
Indians in his charge were scattered though the woods. A single 
half-witted breed was holding down the Fort, and pointed out the 
uninhabited island, already known to Pierre, where the scows from 
time immemorial had been unloading the cargoes destined for 
Northern posts. The factor and Pierre paddled across and threw 
their bedding into a long, tumble-down shack reserved for the Com- 
pany's servants. It was still somewhat too early for retiring, so 
MacDonald suggested a walk, and they set out for a stroll through 
the dense wood. 

Pierre had been unusually silent that evening, as though by 
contagion with the factor's taciturnity. Now, of a sudden, his 
tongue was loosened. Did MacDonald know why the post had 
never been transferred to the island for all its fine landing place? 
The Indians would not live there, they never came there alone, for 
the spot was haunted, they said. It was called Simon's island. 
There was a long story about it, a foolish tale, but one the Indians 
told about their camp fires as though it were true. Of course Simon 
had really lived; Pierre remembered him well from the days of his 
boyhood — a ne'er-do-well, not a bad sort, but one always in bad 
luck. First, none of the girls would have him, then he got married 
and his wife died in childbirth. He would get a job towing a boat, 
stumble over a windfall on his first trip, and break his leg. It was 
always that way with poor Simon. When he gave up tracking, he 
became a pelt hunter. For years he roamed over the country and 
eked out a miserable livelihood. At last he had a stroke of luck 
and caught a silver fox. Now he thought he should live in plenty. 
But while on his way to the nearest trader's, he fell in with another 
trapper. They slept side by side, and in the morning the stranger 
and the silver fox were both gone. High and low, Simon looked 
for them, but in vain. Then he turned crazy in his grief and be- 
came a Windigo. Whomever he chanced upon, men or women, 
he killed and ate. The Indians made up parties to hunt him like 



334 



American Indian Life 



a wild beast. He laughed at them; he was Windigo. They could 
never catch him. Then some time after, those who had hunted him 
were found murdered in their tents, and people ceased pursuing him. 
Now they tried to buy him off. As soon as he had been sighted 
near a camp, heaps of meat were piled up outside the settlement, 
and the handsomest clothing was laid beside the food. Then he 
would leave the camp alone — till some fine day the fancy seized him 
once more, and he stole into a camp to gratify his craving. That 
was long ago, and Simon had died on this very island, where he lay 
buried. Yet the natives believed that his ghost still walked as a 
Windigo from time to time, though the Company said it was all 
nonsense and put up its shack there, in defiance of Indian tales. Of 
course the Company knew best. 

MacDonald had been listening with growing attention, and 
throughout the tale Pierre's gaze had been riveted on his features. 
Had not a faint tremor passed down his spine when he first heard 
the word "Windigo"? Had he not caught his breath when he 
learned of the ghost's reported wanderings? And why this sudden 
turning on his heels at the close of the story? Pierre was whistling 
a tune on the return walk, and the factor roared at him to keep still. 
He was plainly nervous; the tale had done its work. 

Arrived at the cabin, MacDonald picked up his bedding and 
muttered, "Perhaps we had better go across to the post, we won't 
be able to sleep here for mosquitoes." He did not expect Pierre to 
have faith in his pretext; neither did he expect to be openly flouted 
by his meek companion. But Pierre, looking him up and down, 
asked drily, "Afraid of Simon's ghost?" "Afraid of nothing!" 
thundered MacDonald, hurling his blankets on the floor and glower- 
ing at his mate. He began to pace the room with giant strides. 
There was no doubt of it, he was troubled. He would not play 
cribbage. He was too tired, he said. MacDonald, who had never 
been tired before! So, soon both men sprawled out on the floor 
covered with their four-point blankets. But neither fell asleep. 

After a while MacDonald rose softly, and tiptoed toward the 
door. Perhaps he could make his way to the bank unnoticed, and 
put the river between Simon's ghost and himself. But Pierre was 
wide awake and staring at him in the gloaming of a Northern night. 
"I was just stretching a bit," the big man offered in explanation. 



Windigo, a Chipewyan Story 



335 



and Pierre did not even deign to tell him he lied. He sat up against 
the door now, and was eyeing the factor steadily, scornfully. The 
big man was nonplussed. What was Pierre's game? How could 
he be so calm in a haunted spot? A mad hatred against him sud- 
denly rose in MacDonald's breast. He would brain this puny dolt 
with a blow of his fist, and say he had been drowned in the rapids. 
Then he would escape to the post and no soul would know of his 
weakness. Still Pierre sat looking at him with his gun across his 
knees. MacDonald cared little for the gun. There was at least 
a chance for him to take Pierre by surprise, and wrest the weapon 
from his grasp, and when had MacDonald been afraid to take 
chances? But there was something in Pierre's gaze that cowed and 
subdued him. So he merely sat up facing Pierre and the door, with 
neither uttering a word. , 

As the minutes passed, strange noises became audible. The floor 
was creaking and the door began to rattle, and over on the other 
bank the dogs were barking as dogs never barked before. There was 
a something — was it a bat? — that kept flitting against the roof, and 
on the door came an unaccountable rhythmic tapping. The factor 
fidgeted and peered in this direction and that, while Pierre sat now 
six feet away, immobile and pitiless. Then there was a different 
sound. A slow, heavy tread was coming up from the water edge. 
It was approaching the shack from the rear, passed round and got 
to the door. MacDonald sprang to his feet, but the steps went on, 
and he sank on the floor relieved though faint. But what was that? 
The steps were coming closer again: the wanderer was circling 
the shack a second time. Yet it seemed he had no intention of 
coming in, for, without halting at the door, the mysterious being 
started on its third round. But if it cared not to enter, neither was 
its purpose to leave the inmates in peace, for a fourth circuit began. 

Now Pierre burst forth: "It is Simon! He is walking round 
four times, then he will stop and pay you a visit." MacDonald 
leaped up — a beast at bay, afraid to stay, afraid to go out now, 
straining to hear the weird footfalls first passing away then returning, 
ever more and more distinct. And now there was a dead halt at the 
door. Would it fly open and usher in the hideous shape of Simon's 
ghost? The door remained closed. But now Pierre rose with a 
grim laugh, dropping his gun. He walked toward his master and 



336 



American Indian Life 



thrust his thumb at his face. "Simon has come to see us wrestle. 
I will wrestle you for Louise. Simon has made me Windigo. I 
will throw you and kill you and eat you, and he wants to look on." 
Fearlessly and madly he sprang at the giant's throat. The factor 
had not watched him, he had not heard his speech, he was still 
looking and looking at the door. Where now were those puissant 
arms that had held Pierre like an infant at Fort Hearne? Limp 
and powerless, they were hanging from a twitching heap that fell 
resistless at the first impact. Pierre beat him and kicked him and 
choked him. Without knife or gun, with his bare hands he mur- 
dered the great factor. And then — he was Windigo! 

He rose jubilant. The Windigo had spoken truly: his enemy lay 
conquered. What next? Return to the post and tell of his deed? 
Would they believe him? They would say he was drunk or crazed, 
he who could not kill a fly. They would say some enemy of Mac- 
Donald's, a party of freetraders perchance, had shot him from am- 
bush. And he would be once more good, meek Pierre Villeneuve. 
It had all been in vain. To kill MacDonald was nothing, nothing 
even to regain Louise. He wanted to be master like the dead giant, 
and that he could never be. 

He staggered to the door -and flung it open. What was that? 
A pallid face recoiling in terror, a horror-stricken cry of "Windigo!" 
and a man fleeing to the river and paddling across. He had for- 
gotten the breed he had bribed, on plea of a practical joke, to cross 
from the post and prowl round the shack. The man had peeped 
in and seen everything. Now Pierre was saved, now he had won. 
His witness would spread the news and warn the people against the 
new Windigo. Pierre was greater now than MacDonald had ever 
been. His fame would travel from Hudson's Bay to the Rocky 
Mountains and from the Red River to Fort Macpherson. How 
they would pamper him — Crees and half-breeds, Chipewyans and 
Slaveys— as he roamed over their country that now was his. He 
would steal their furs and eat their game and kidnap their wives, 
snapping his fingers in their faces. He was master now, for now he 
was Windigo. 

Robert H. Lowie 



Cries-for-salmon, a Ten'a Woman 



You ask me to tell you the story of somebody's life at Anvik, my 
home in Alaska. I will tell the story of the woman who gave me 
the moccasins I showed you — there is more to tell about a girl than 
a boy. But I shall have to tell about a boy, too, for you can't tell 
about the girls without telling about the boys. 

When Cries-for-salmon was to be born, they called in Havetse- 
kedtsa, Their-little-grandmother, an old woman of experience, to 
help. For three days after the birth Their-little-grandmother 
stayed by the side of the bed of skins, nor might the mother leave 
her bed without the permission of Their-little-grandmother. I 
don't know much about these days because boys and men do not stay 
in the house at this time; they go to the kadjim (the men's house). 
All I know is that the after-birth is wrapped in a cloth, and placed 
in the fork of a tree — the after-birth is a part of the body and you 
would not want to destroy it, just as when you cut yourself, you wipe 
off the blood with shavings and place the shavings in the fork of 
a tree. Even what is left of an old garment you would not destroy, 
you would not throw it into the fire as the white people do, but put 
it into a bag which in course of time you will place in a spruce tree. 
Whatever is put away in the woods is thought of as being still a 
part of the village, so that when a ceremonial circuit has to be made 
of the village, a half mile or so of woods is covered so that these 
things in the trees may be included. 

The baby's cord is tied around the wrist or the neck of the baby 
with sinew, and left on for two or three years. An ax head is placed 
on the body of a boy baby for a certain number of days — I don't 
know how many, nor what they put on top of a girl. Should a 
white person come into the house at this time, the object is removed. 
If the child dies under three or four years of age the object, the 
ax or other thing, is put with the corpse. I don't know why, and 
when I have asked the old men they would answer, "Who of us 
knows?" as they often answer when they do know but have not 
enough confidence in you to tell. Besides, young fellows are not 

337 



338 



American Indian Life 



expected to ask questions; you must learn by overhearing, and 
coming that way to understand. 

For twenty days after Cries-for-salmon was born, her father had 
to stay at home, indoors, "under his smoke hole," as people used to 
say when they lived in igloos or underground houses. Nowadays, 
all or almost all live in frame houses. During these twenty days 
a man is not to touch any object made by white people, more par- 
ticularly things of steel or iron, knife or ax or ice pick. Copper, 
got in trade from the coast, which has been melted down and hand 
beaten, a man may use; and he would eat out of dishes of wood or 
bone. Work tools of any kind he would not handle, unless in a 
household emergency he had to go to the forest for wood or game, 
when he would first go to the dyiin, the shaman, to get a song to 
sing in the circumstances. For this song, as for other songs, the 
shaman would be paid lof tak — skins, meat, or oil. 

Even if a man goes out during the twenty days, he should be 
careful not to pass over the water of a stream or lake — it would be 
othlang, and the fish would cause a skin eruption in the child. Our 
skin is usually very smooth and clear, and whenever any one has an 
eruption or rash we know it is from othlang. 

Had Cries-for-salmon been born in the spring, then the following 
fall her father would not go eeling — that too would be othlang and 
it would cause a dearth of eels. Nor would a man go eeling for a 
year after a death in his family. If you knew how much we depended 
on eels for food, you would understand why we have to be so careful. 
The first sign of the eel coming is the finding of an eel in the stomach 
of a lush, the fish which is our main food in winter. Some one may 
find an eel in a lush, miles away from the village, and then at once 
he sends word, and the men go out to -the places on the river where 
the channel is narrow and there are good feeding grounds for the 
eel. Here they come so thick that they cause the water to rise, and 
you have but to throw them out on the bank with a stick. As people 
eel together in this way, every one would know if a man went eeling 
after a death or birth in his family. 

As with work after a birth in his family, so with amusements — a 
man should not take part. He should sit quiet, with his head down, 
for at this time he is supposed to be in connection with his spirits. 
His spirits are not any stronger than the strongest songs he has, and 



Cries-for-salmon, a Ten'a Woman 



339 



at this time a man must be watchful lest his songs lose their virtue 
or power, or lest from violations of the rules the baby die. 

When Cries-for-salmon was restless as a little child, and cried, no 
doubt her mother called out to her, "Lia! the Evil One! Keep 
quiet!" to scare her. (To abuse any one, people will say, Li dena! 
Blood of the Evil One.) And when Cries-for-salmon was able to 
walk, she was watched all the time by her father or mother, for she 
had to be taught from the very beginning not to step on anything per- 
taining to the welfare of the family that might be lying on the floor. 
Should a stick be lying there, for example, that was being worked 
for an arrow or fish trap, the little girl would have to walk around 
it, not over it. The spirit of the boy is stronger than the spirit of the 
girl, so a boy may step where he pleases. 

And the girl, as she grows a little older, has to be taught to be ex- 
tremely careful about whatever she finds on the floor, of bits of food, 
of bone or feather or hair or skin. It is a rule that all such waste bits 
be put separately into baskets by the women, and carried to the haunts, 
in forest or on river, of the creatures to which the bits belonged. 
Cries-for-salmon would go along with her mother to see how she 
dumped into the river from her canoe the feathers of duck or goose 
or swan, that they might change back into birds such as they had 
come from — as the feathers drifted down the current, although in- 
visible to her, Cries-for-salmon was told, they became birds again 
to return to feed in their old haunts of mud and goose grass. Sim- 
ilarly she saw her mother empty out fish bones to become fish, and she 
saw her take to the forest the bones of game animals. Were such 
bones left on the floor and stepped on, it would be othlang. 

Sometimes, as men sit on the floor with their heels drawn back to 
the buttocks, or as they sit cross-legged, left leg over right, with a 
bowl of food propped on their legs, a bone may snap out on the floor 
instead of back from their fingers into the bowl. It is a spirit of the 
family, a hungry spirit, who is after the food. The spirit of the food 
goes to feed the family spirit, and although the particle is picked up 
and taken to the forest, it has lost its power, it will not become ani- 
mal again. 

When we men kill willow or ruffed grouse (ptarmigan), we take 
out some of the tail feathers and throw them on the ground, giving 
them back to the forest to become birds again. I remember that the 



340 



American Indian Life 



first time I shot a grouse I took out some feathers above the tail. 
The fellow with me laughed. "That is not right," said he. "It is 
the tail feathers you must take." In selling grouse to the Mission, 
people will first skin them, just as they will first pluck the geese or 
ducks they sell, and remove the entrails. Similarly, they skin and 
clean the rabbits they sell. (Before a ceremonial the men engage in 
a rabbit drive. They pick out an island or a point of land, and 
spread out, each man in sight of another. Each yells and beats on 
the trees to scare out the rabbits, and then they form the arc of a 
circle and close down to the water. They keep the rabbits for the 
feast, but a few they may sell.) Bear meat and lynx meat they 
would not sell at all to white people. 

We do not eat rabbit meat in summer and no doubt Cries-for- 
salmon was told, as are other children, that it was wormy. She 
was told, too, never to eat in the dark, lest she swallow the eye of 
the Evil One, which in going back to the Evil One, would choke 
her. Nor in eating meat should she cut off a piece in her teeth. 
In pouring out tea or liquids, Cries-for-salmon was taught to be very 
careful to pour only to well below the brim, almost an inch below, 
not to risk spilling. If the cup ran over it would be othlang to 
the person served — he would fail to run down his game, to catch 
fish, or to do well in leadership — and to overcome the othlang he 
would have to go to the shaman for a song. 

In all these particulars a girl has to learn how to behave, how 
to carry herself. A young man is rated by his ability in making 
snowshoes and in running down game, fox, deer and, before the 
portaging of the whites drove them out, caribou. A girl is rated 
by her ability in handicrafts and in providing food, but she is also 
esteemed for her household behavior. If she is gifted with strength, 
with virtue, as she grows old she is likely to have given into her 
keeping an old wooden bowl which has been passed down from 
generation to generation of women, within the same rank, to be 
used in ceremonies to honor hunters of distinction. Moreover, the 
presents of a careful woman are welcome. People hate to see a 
young man as he grows up wear things made by any or everybody. 
Were he to wear mittens or boots or parki (shirt) made by a care- 
less woman, his own ability might be reduced and his spirits 
weakened. 
\ 



Cries-for-salmon, a Ten'a Woman 



34i 



Cries-for-salmon was taught, like other little girls and boys, never 
to sing or whistle when eating, and never to imitate at any time in 
the winter the birds of summer — that would prolong the winter, 
perhaps making it run into two winters (a frequent expression of 
the narrator meaning that the already short summer is further 
shortened), and so causing famine. Nor was Cries-for-salmon 
ever to make snowballs or snow images. There is but one time a 
snow man may be made — when people want a freezing spell in the 
spring. Travelers are afraid of being caught away from home by 
the spring floods. One early spring I remember that there were 
many traders at Anvik when it turned warm. The men had to get 
home to make their fish camps and set their fish nets. Some of them 
had a portage of twenty miles to make through tundra and woods. 
The soft snow in the woods and the slush would tire out their dogs. 
So they went to the shaman and got permission to make a snow man 
to face the north, and draw from it the cold winds. As image 
maker they chose an unmarried man who had been born in a month 
of changing weather. 

Snow fights the children may not play, but they play at war in 
another way. Almost anything will start a sham fight. Perhaps 
a child will call the family of another child dirty or say, "My father 
has more skins than yours." Then they gather fireweed, strip the 
stalks and use them for spears and darts. These weapons take the 
skin off your forehead, but the more you bleed the better you like 
it, and you never cry, no matter how hard hit. Two or three boys 
will pretend to be killed, the girls will set up a wail, they have a 
big feast, and they make friends again. 

The boys play, too, at duck-hunting and deer-stalking. They will 
make a duck of grass and fasten it to a long, slender stick. Then 
they put it into a muddy place and throw short wooden spears at it. 
The game should be played only in the spring, for if it is played 
later it will cause famine. It is a very exciting game, and often, 
out of season, we boys would carry cans of water into the woods to 
make a duck pond out of sight of the old people. 

To play deer-stalking, boys take a bunch of grass and make it 
into the figure of a deer. For the belly they insert strips of salmon. 
They set the figure up on sticks and then go off into a cover of 
stumps and grass. One boy says to the other, "I see a deer." 



342 



American Indian Life 



"Where?" "Over there." They creep up on it. They shoot, and 
the boy who sends his arrow nearest to the heart is deemed the killer. 
They skin the deer, talking all the while — "How fat it is, how 
limber." — "It was hard to get." They take out the dried fish, the 
killer cuts it up and, as would an adult, he sees to it that the food 
is divided up among the hunters. When a man returns from a long 
and successful hunt he goes to the kadjim, while his wife prepares 
the food and invites all the people to come and partake of it. She 
goes from house to house, saying, "Come and drink tea and eat 
meat." (By "meat" she would always mean bear meat, as that being 
the most powerful meat, is called just meat. Other flesh she would 
call deer meat, porcupine meat, etc.) Similarly when a woman gets 
a full trap of fish all the people are invited to eat. 

Little girls and boys together play at fishing and housekeeping. 
The boys will gather willows and make them into a great bundle, 
a foot and a half thick and fifteen feet long. They choose a shallow 
place in the river where there are little fish, and they lay the willow 
trap in an oval. After the catch the girls take the fish to cook, and 
boys and girls pair off together to make fish camps like their elders. 
Once when I was about ten, I paired off with Cries-for-salmon. She 
got roots to sew into a basket, and grasses to make a doll. She sang 
to the doll and pretended to nurse it. I went into the woods and 
gathered bark and wood. I shot a squirrel and a little bird with 
my bow and arrows, and Cries-for-Salmon skinned the squirrel and 
picked the bird and cooked. We even made a kadjim to have a 
feast in. In winter, we children built snow houses and snared rab- 
bits and stole pieces of dried meat or salmon from home. It is not 
stealing unless we are caught. But our games in winter were cut 
down. 

I wish I could tell you about the time when the children, girls 
and boys, are turned over to the shaman, that they may belong to the 
village, to be a part of the village. I know there is a ceremony at 
that time, but I don't know much about it. At that time I was at 
the Mission house. The children are little — about four or five 
years old. Henceforward, should anything happen to the family, 
the village would look after the child, and the village is responsible 
for the child's learning as much as possible about village custom. 
The old men talk to the boys, and the old women to the girls. They 



Cries-for-salmon, a Ten'a Woman 343 



tell them old stories to teach them what they may not have learned 
at home. Of course there are other stories that people tell; but 
these are never told except at night in the kadjim and in the early 
part of the winter before it is time to prepare for the big ceremonies, 
to make the masks and rehearse the songs. Many of these stories 
are about the bird nobody will ever kill, Raven, who can change him- 
self into anything and who made the Yukon river by drawing a 
furrow with his feet, and the hills and mountains, by carrying earth. 
And many stories are about the beginnings of a town, of how it was 
started by a couple who survived a massacre and of what happened 
up to the present day. . . . It is improper to tell a story when nobody 
is listening, so every other sentence or two somebody must say "hen, 
hen" to show that there is a listener. 

There is a ceremony for getting a name, too, which I know little 
about. Persons may be named according to what they do or accord- 
ing to their character. One girl I know is called Swollen-face; 
another, Pointing-at (she had a mean habit of pointing her finger 
[index finger of left hand] at people in scorn) ; another, Does-not- 
like-any-one ( i.e. men; she would refuse suitors); another, One- 
the-Evil-One-does-not-like. This last girl got her name because 
she was never sick or subject to epidemics; she had good eyes; she 
was big at heart; she was a successful basket maker and net maker 
and rabbit snarer; she had a cheerful face and looked helpful, 
just the opposite of the kind of woman who hurts people by 
looking at them in scorn, and of whom people are afraid. I know 
a man called He-creeps-towards because his gait is stealthy, as if he 
were stalking something. Because of the way the name is given, 
and because it has so much meaning the name is little used. You 
go around it. A man will call out "Look here!" and his child will 
recognize his father's voice and know it is he who is being called. 
When the Mission children call a village child by his name, it makes 
him very angry. 

We go on now to when Cries-for-salmon is a big girl. When she 
first menstruated, she was placed in the corner of her father's house 
to be out of sight of young men, and to stay so for a year, as we count 
by moons. The space assigned to Cries-for-salmon was just long 
enough to lie down in. In this corner Cries-for-salmon had to keep 
all the things she used, more particularly her own cup and bucket 



344 



American Indian Life 



of water. When no one was about, she went to fill the bucket, but, 
as with her other things, she had to be scrupulous about not leaving 
the bucket where young men could by any chance come in contact with 
it. Girls are supposed not to go outdoors at all; but if a girl has 
to go, she must walk with head bent so that if she passed by a young 
man her eyes would not get a direct line on his eyes, or his eyes on 
hers. That would be othlang. The man would lose his hunting 
and fishing powers *and what I may call his community power. 
(For example, he would not know how to speak in meeting, where 
there are rules for speaking in order to cut out loose talkers.) Once 
I went to Cries-for-salmon's house while she was in the corner. We 
do not knock on the door like white people, and I would have gone 
in, making the customary quavering sound of hihihihihihi and saying 
something perhaps about the weather, expecting to be told to sit 
down and to be served with food — a guest is never allowed to leave 
without food — but Cries-for-salmon's father saw me approaching 
and met me at the door, saying, "Let us go to the kadjim." I knew 
what that meant; he had a daughter in the corner; he was protecting 
me. 

In the corner, a girl wears continually a beaded forehead band to 
which bear claws are attached. Her behavior during this time de- 
termines whether or not she is to be a worthy woman for life, and 
how skilled she will be in the domestic arts. For at this time she 
makes everything she is going to use after she marries — what I have 
heard the students here (at Hampton Institute) call a hope chest. 
She learns to sew, to make beadwork and porcupine-quill work, to 
make baskets, and fish nets. The first few months she is not allowed 
to cook, but towards the close of the period the cooking, the bulk of 
the housework, indeed, is put upon her. And it is then that suitors 
take notice of her work and accomplishments. They notice whether 
the seams of the boots and mittens she has made look strong and 
durable; whether her bead embroidery is fine, whether she is indus- 
trious and competent, how she carries herself. A man knows how 
important to his welfare the character of his wife is. A man has to 
run his chase, but, after he marries, that is all; his wife does all the 
hard work. She gets wood and water, she snares grouse and rabbits, 
she sets fish traps, and she prepares all the clothing and all the food, 



Cries-for-salmon, a Ten'a Woman 



345 



not only for the family but for the ceremonies at which the man is 
called upon to contribute. 

But there is more to tell about the girl in her first stage, as well 
as about the feeling about women until they have a change of life, 
until they are old. If a girl goes into the corner in the summer, 
when we are all at the fish camp, her family, in returning to winter 
quarters, will probably have to cross the river or go along it. This 
happened, I recall, in the case of Cries-for-salmon. Her father 
had to go to the shaman. He went to Salmon-clubber, who lived 
with his two wives and several families who had followed him be- 
cause of his services, to settle down twenty miles or so away from 
Anvik. Cries-for-salmon's father gave Salmon-clubber what he 
asked for — several bundles of fish, some seal oil, and a deerskin. 
And then Salmon-clubber went into a trance and, as the feeling he 
had in it was good, he gave permission to the family to move. Cries- 
for-salmon had to stay in the bow of the canoe, crouched down that 
her head might not be above the gunwale, and her face had to be 
covered over. Had she not observed these rules, it is likely that 
some time later a rash would have come out on her face. 

Salmon-clubber would have had to withhold permission had any 
men been out hunting ducks or geese, as they do hunt after the fishing 
season closes. The birds and animals are sensitive, as you would say, 
to girls "in the corner." To have animals respect them, men must 
respect their songs. After I returned home in 1917, I went on a 
bird hunt — this was in the spring. I got only one goose and one 
crane, and the other five men got much less, too, than usual. On 
our return one of the old men said to me, "My son, are you thor- 
oughly familiar with all our rules? I have been talking with the 
shaman and he has seen you bathing where the girls bathe. There 
are three girls in their first stage." "How did you know?" "We 
have ways of knowing." And he used one of the phrases the old 
men use which we do not understand. The old men talk to us, only 
on the outside of things. They tell us enough for us to understand 
if we think as they think. He went on, "It was because of that, 
you got so little on your hunt, and the snow fell and heavy northwest 
winds blew. . . . We could put you aside; but we think too much 
of you; and I speak to you as a friend." Had I been stubborn or 



346 American Indian Life 

not seen through what he meant at this time or another, I would have 
become known for it from one village to the other, and it would be 
hard for me to get a wife. 

This old man knew, of course, that boys of the Mission were apt 
to be careless of the old rules. He may have seen the boys, for 
example, go into the basement of the girls' dormitory, a violation of 
a strict rule, for, until a woman is old, she is, as we say, in an un- 
favorable state, and she should never be above the head of a man. 
In the spring, families move out to the fishing grounds where they 
open the season by making canoes or boats they will use. In cutting 
the wood they use a whipsaw. Now it is a rule that if a man and 
a woman are sawing together the man must always stand at the 
higher end of the saw, the woman below. Similarly, in putting 
away the fish in the cache, the post-built storeroom, the man must do 
the overhead work; a woman would never work on a rack above 
a man. In the kadjim, women sit on the floor, and men overhead 
on the benches which they also use to sleep on. Not only the Mis- 
sion house, but other houses built on the American two-storied plan 
are making it difficult to follow this rule of overhead. 1 

Again, while a woman is still young she should not be present 
at a birth. Nor may she eat a certain species of duck or their eggs, 
and "meat" i. e. bear, she may not eat. 2 

During the menstrual periods, for about a week, were a young 
man to come into the house or a man to stay home, it would cause 
the woman pain at childbirth, so at these times a woman's husband 
leaves their bed and goes to stay in the kadjim, sleeping there with 
the boys and young men. A boy leaves his mother, to live at the 
kadjim as soon as he has courage enough, perhaps at fourteen or 
fifteen. If plucky, he may go earlier; but if a weakling, he may not 
go until he is eighteen. 

During her periods, a girl or woman will protect men against 
herself if she can. For example, if a boy starts to wrestle with a 
girl — to fuss her, as you say, only it is not done your way, a boy 
wrestles and throws a girl down, and tumbles about, it is much gayer 

1 What an interesting illustration of how custom and belief may be affected by a change in 
material culture, caused by foreign contact! 

2 The Rev. J. Jette notes that a peculiar fear of bears is universal among Ten'a women, con- 
cluding that the fear is due to the bear tales in which the bear is represented as peculiarly hos- 
tile to women. The view that the tale is the outcome of the fear is also tenable. 



Cries-for-salmon, a Ten'a Woman 347 

and more lively-the girl, if she is in her period, will claw his face 
to make him leave her alone. The old people see him scratched up 
and they know why, and they laugh at him. . . . Once when Cnes- 
for-salmon's mother was in the kadjim at a ceremonial she was 
called upon to dance on the skin she was giving to the shaman for 
a deceased relative. We saw her hesitate. "Go ahead. What s 
the matter with you?" some one said. She was in her period 
"That's all right," they said to her. "Stand on one corner o the 
skin We'll fix it up." She took her place with Cries-for-salmon 
next to her, and they went through their own dance, their eyes on 
the ground and making the motions with their arms that belonged 
to the dance. ... In this way, you see, Cries-for-salmon learned 
the dance that belonged to her mother. , 

Like all dancers, the girl and her mother faced the doors of the 
kadiim-there are two doors, the outer of bearskin, meaning 
strength the inner, about four feet away, of wolferene meaning 
speed 8 and skill. The space of about four feet, between the doors 
allows for the first door to close on the person entering on all fours, 
and shut out Li, the Evil One, before the second door is opened 
When masks are'set out under their covers they too, face the door . 
The smoke hole of the kadjim has a cover of bear gut Below it, 
in the center of the floor, is the fire. The kadjim is always warm. 
After the fire flares up, it is killed with split logs. 

There is a ceremonial in the kadjim for a girl after she comes out 
from the corner. I know that she wears a new parki given to her 
byTer parents or by her suitor; but I have never seen the ceremonial 
and I can't tell about it. , 

As I said before, a girl may have a suitor while she is in the 
comer or before- hat is a young man, who has noticed her and 
know he wants her, has set to work for her family. He cuts wood 
for them and fetches water and gives them the bulk of his gam. If 
he does enough to create an interest in h.m on the part of the old 
n ople they will accept him. The girl herself has no say. Even 
f 6 h P e iikefhim, if thfold man does not like him, thinking ; he as 
no, done enough, the young man can not get the g rL On the other 
hand the girl may not like the young man whom the old man likes. 
As soon as § she came out of the corner Cries-for-salmon was mamed 
to a man her father liked because he had done so much. Th,s man, 



348 



American Indian Life 



Thleg'athts'ox, Fish-skin-hat, after giving loftak, had also to get the 
consent of the shaman, or perhaps it was the chief of the village. 
Cries-for-salmon did not like Fish-skin-hat; and yet although his 
father is a miser, Fish-skin-hat-himself is a good man of ability and 
power— songs had been bought for him and his name was one no 
ordinary fellow would have. (For such a name a man must have 
powers and must live up to them.) 

Cries-for-salmon's parents knew that since Cries-for-salmon 
would be a woman of ability, a good snarer and fisher, a woman 
who would be highly esteemed for the amount of fish she could cut 
up in a day, and for the skill and rapidity of her sewing, she should 
get a husband equally competent, one who would run his chase well, 
who would save his furs and trade. The old people knew, too, that 
unless Cries-for-salmon got a good husband, it would be a slave's 
life for her. She would have to work for her husband's relatives 
as well as for him. For the first two or three years, a girl will live 
on with her man in her parents' home; but then he builds his own 
house and takes her to this house. It may be near her parents' house, 
but it belongs to her husband. She will leave it, if she quarrels 
with him, and is scolded or beaten up by him, and she will return 
to her parents' house, or to her grandmother's or nearest relative's, 
to stay there until he comes for her. 

Fish-skin-hat belonged to Anvik, but Cries-for-salmon had seen 
little of him before he began to come in at night to visit her. Older 
boys and girls do not go about together in the day time; you never 
see them paddling together in a canoe. A girl would not speak to 
you on the road. If she wants to talk, it must be in the dark or 
under the cover of a roof — under cover because, as people say, 
"There is some one watching you." 

After the ice breaks up and people live in tents, when a man wants 
to take a girl, he will slip in at night under the tent wall to the side 
where he knows she sleeps, and he will slip out again when the birds 
begin to make noise. People of position see to it that nobody visits 
their daughter this way, except the man she is to live with openly 
after a while, i. e. marry. Parents would say to a girl, "You watch 
yourself." If the wrong young man came in, the girl would know be- 
cause he would not make the signs agreed upon, holding her perhaps 
in a certain way, and parents would expect the girl to cry out and wake 



Cries-for-salmon, a Ten'a Woman 



349 



up the family. But— some people are careless, and there are young 
men who do browse about. Sometimes the family will so embarrass 
the young man that he has to marry the girl; they will say that the 
girl has conceived by him — "from him she has man inside." A 
man who persisted in not marrying in these circumstances, would 
be shunned by the other girls. 

At the ceremonies, young men see the girls in a formal way. The 
chief will appoint a girl to be a man's partner, sohaldid. When 
I returned home in 19 17, the chief appointed three girls to be my 
partners, and two of the three girls, Cries-for-salmon and one other, 
accepted. During the intervals of the ceremonial, your partner 
invites you to her house, and sets out, for you to eat and drink, tea 
and whatever the season has produced, bear, caribou, etc. What 
you can not eat you are expected to carry away, and you judge the 
girl according to the generosity of her service. Always there is 
great lavishness in setting out food. At bear feasts, for example, 
the woman serving would set out ten times more than I could eat. 
(Never forgetting at the conclusion to give me a bowl of water to 
wash with and a cloth, that I might not take out carelessly any waste 
particle.) The dance leaders call out for the presents. When you 
give them, you go through a short dance. Once when it was my 
turn, two women, thinking I did not know the dance, got up, with- 
out being asked, and danced in my place. One woman was gifted 
with bear songs, the other, with hunting songs. I had given some 
tea in bulk. A cupful was given to every one present except to me, 
the giver, and then of what was left over they gave first to the 
shaman, and then to the elders and so down. On another occasion 
I received a skein of twine, an ax, a saw, a steel trap, two large white 
fish, and some ice cream of seal oil, berries, boneless fish and snow. 
Somebody made a joke. "We have given him things as if he were 
married. He ought to go and take some of these old women around 
here who are looking for old men." I did not like the ice cream, 
so I gave it to Cries-for-salmon who saw to it, as a partner is always 
supposed to do, that my presents were taken out and put away. 
Women give feasts to men, where the women dance and give out 
presents, inviting the men between dances to eat. The day follow- 
ing, the men give the feast to the women, seeing to it likewise that 
the 'women get all they can eat. I may say here that it is the in- 



350 



American Indian Life 



terest a man expresses in the feasts, in the ceremonials, that helps 
to make him a chief. Who helps most at these times and at other 
times (whenever one man can help another, help is expected of 
him) qualifies as a chief. 

The sohaldid or partner relationship lasts. Whenever you return 
to the village where your partner lives, she will provide for you. 
Married women as well as unmarried are assigned as partners, and 
this sometimes makes trouble with the husband. But I remember 
one case where all the trouble was made by the missionary. Two 
men had each the other's wife as partner, and after a while they 
agreed each to take his partner as his wife, that is they exchanged 
wives. Five years later the missionary heard about it and, although 
by that time one of the women was dead, he decided to make the 
other woman go back to her first husband. 

With the marshal and me he went at night to Myuli's house. 
They knocked. 'Who's that?" called Myuli. . . . 'Why don't you 
come in the light as we do when we want to speak to any one?" 
The woman went to the door. A woman always goes to the door, 
as the newcomer might be an enemy, and she goes to protect her 
husband. The missionary wanted the marshal to arrest Myuli on 
the spot. "Do you think I am a white man to run away?" asked 
Myuli. . . . Myuli got sixty days, the other man thirty days, and 
the woman six months. "I can't see through this," Myuli said to 
me, "the other man was satisfied, I was satisfied, and she was satis- 
fied, and now they come and break up things for us." . . . Myuli 
sent in food to her after he got out, and after she got out they lived 
together again. 

At the ceremonies the old men saw that I was well provided for, 
and because I had been away four years I was given a seat with 
the chief men of the village; and people tried to attach me to Anvik 
in other ways. Women are the berry gatherers, and so women would 
ask me to come and eat berries at their houses. At other times men 
would invite me. Once one of the chiefs met me as he came in from 
a hunt. He invited me to his house to eat. Instead of saying, how- 
ever, "Do you want to come now?" or "Let's go," he said, "Wait a 
while." From that I understood that he did not want me to follow 
him directly to the house because he had a daughter in the corner, 
and I knew too that he wanted me to become a suitor. He was 



Cries-for-salmon, a Ten'a Woman 351 

afraid if I went along with him I might ask a question about her in 
the open sky — that would be othlang. 

More than once an old man would say to me, "We want to see 
you settled down with a good-hearted girl who will take good care 
of you and keep to the customs. We don't want to see you with a 
Mission girl. They don't amount to much, they have lost their 
pride." (You see the Mission girls don't have to make their 
clothing or look ahead. Because of famines we always look ahead. 
People become greatly alarmed when they are down to a few skins 
etc.; they are prudent, they watch themselves— except in ceremonies 
when they give away everything.) 

And the old man might go on to say, "A man is no more than his 
wife. You must use your head enough to get a village girl. If 
you will go with the right kind of a girl here, we won't say anything. 
We don't care if you slip in at night and slip out again." Some one 
else then might laugh out and make a joke. "If you went in you 
might upset a bowl and have to get out!" Being a Mission boy 
they thought I might be awkward. 

People do not want young men to marry out of their village, and 
so, just as soon as a boy kills his first game, as soon as he can run his 
chase down and trap — perhaps he is only sixteen or so — they want 
him to take a girl. Nor do people welcome foreign suitors. They 
suspect them. A man never gives up connections with his own 
people — at ceremonies, for example, men who have wandered off 
may return home, and then they sit in the old place with their own 
people, even if the wife's people are there too. Outsiders are in- 
vited to ceremonies. Two messengers are sent out to carry the 
invitation to other villages. From the masks the messengers wear, 
people know whether the performance is to be a mask ceremonial, 
a spirit ceremonial, or an ordinary "feast." In the old days of raids 
of one village upon another, when all but the chiefs and the girls 
were killed, a foreigner might betray his wife's people to his own 
people, telling them of weakness from an epidemic or from lack of 
warriors for various reasons, or telling about an abundance of stored 
food. And so even now people are suspicious of foreigners. If 
you do not marry within your village, they joke about you — they 
joke so much that it makes it disagreeable. 

When I had volunteered to go into the American army, people 



352 American Indian Life 

said to me, "If you died among us, we would see to it that you were 
sent off right; but if you die on a battlefield you might be blown to 
pieces ; men would track over you." 
"I am not afraid," I answered. 

"You are not afraid; but we want to look out for you. . . . Give 
a minx skin to the shaman; he thinks highly of you, he would not 
expect much to safeguard you." Three men and two women came 
to me to urge this. Finally the shaman himself came. He said, 
"I will not ask you to pay anything. Let me but tattoo on your back 
the image of cross-guns." 

"No," I said, "it would not do when I came to be examined by 
the white army doctor." 

"I will give you a skin-tight shirt with the cross-guns on it. You 
can take off the shirt before the examination." 

"No, in the army you may wear only what the government gives 
you to wear." 

"Well," ended the shaman, "we will perform secretly to protect 
you." The idea about the cross-guns was that as a spirit will not 
go against a spirit of its own kind, with the image on my back other 
guns and bullets would not attack me. 

Again last year when I had the influenza here, and they wired home 
about it, my friend Cries-for-salmon gave fifteen dollars in gold to 
the shaman to have him visit me through his fox, the one who carries 
his messages. Weasels and wolferenes, wolferenes are the most 
powerful of all, may be messengers for the shamans, but the com- 
monest messenger is the fox. The fox is swift and sly. 

A boy should marry among his own people, but it is not customary 
for him to marry near kin, a first cousin. To have relations with 
a sister is othlang. Of such a boy, people would say, "There are so 
many girls, yet he did not have the courage to go with them, he went 
with his sister." If he did go with his sister, he would be thinking 
at the same time of another girl. And for this reason, a sister, 
realizing she was a substitute, would feel outraged. A really weak- 
minded boy would even go with his mother. It is possible, for it 
is all in the dark, and no one speaks; merely some one will come, 

some one will go. 

Cries-for-salmon has a brother who is dead or, as we say, has 
gone." In telling of his death you will hear about the death rites 



Cries-for-salmon, a Ten'a Woman 353 

and the way the people mourn. I will tell you, too, of a woman 
relative of Cries-for-salmon, who died. 

But first I would tell you of another relative of Cries-for-salmon 
who has been such an invalid since the birth of her first child that 
she can not sit up, and who will never have another child. She 
had been a woman who menstruated with the waning moon — the 
character of such women, it is thought, is poor. So, as women do, 
she went to the shaman to have him regulate her periods to fall 
with the growing moon— the best hearted, best natured women men- 
struate at that time. Again there was a time when this woman was 
much frightened because the menstrual flow did not stop. This time 
she asked an old woman shaman — sick women are apt to go to women 
shamans and to the wives or widows of shamans, and sick men, to 
men shamans — if she should consult a white doctor. "Yes," said the 
old woman, "we don't know what is going to happen nowadays." 
Since the whites have come people have lost self-confidence. For- 
merly they were far more certain that the cause of sickness, of an 
epidemic, let us say, was not keeping the rules. 

Well, when Cries-for-salmon's relative was sick after her first 
child was born, she went again to the man shaman. On this occasion 
the shaman expressed a desire for her, but she refused. Ordinarily 
women will not refuse the shaman. Nor would their husbands ex- 
pect them to. The old women tell you never to go against the will 
of the shaman. "That is one of the things you will have to watch," 
an old woman once said to me. Nevertheless Cries-for-salmon's 
relative refused, and she has been sick ever since, and ever since the 
other women have sneered at her. 

Her husband, too, has been down and out. They were poor to 
start with, he lived in one of the few underground houses left at 
Anvik, and now he has only three poor dogs, bale-back dogs we call 
them, nor can he borrow a dog team. Not long since, he was 
charged with stealing green fish (fish fresh from the trap) from 
another man's cache. "Why did you steal?" the old men asked him. 
"Don't you know if you are hungry we will feed vou?" And 
so they would. Food would be given to any one who was hungrv, 
although sometimes in return he might be asked to help at the fish 
traps or in making snowshoes. With us it is only when a man is 
put into a mean position, when he has lost pride in himself, that 



354 American Indian Life 

he will steal. In this case, the man denied the theft, so the old men 
kept at him. "Why do you deny?" they asked. "We know what 
you have done. Don't you know that there is somebody watching 
you?" You see, since it is customary for the young men to be most 
of the time in the kadjim, except when they are away hunting or 
in other settlements— on their return they go directly to the kadjim 
to tell the news and to give the jokes they have heard about the per- 
sons they know— the old men know pretty well what the young men 
are about, where they are. Besides there is the shaman. A man 
believes that the shaman knows what he is doing all the time. It 
is just because of this knowledge that the shaman is head of the 
village. 

It is not only for cures, and to buy songs for hunting and trapping, 
that people go to the shaman : the shaman has to blow upon the masks 
which we put on to represent other beings (when we put them on 
we are not ourselves), and the shaman has to give power to the 
dancers by blowing on them at the ceremonies or, as we say, the 
annual performances, of which each has its own name. Until the 
shaman blows on it, a spirit mask is just like any other mask. 
Besides downy feathers, from the leg and breast of duck and 
goose, are fastened to a spirit mask and from the forehead there is 
the quill of a goose feather with a downy tuft tied to the tip. The 
masks of the fun makers are not blown on. The fun makers come 
out at intervals to give the dancers time to rest. The fun makers are 
usually young men, but sometimes a witty old man will act. I re- 
member one old man— he was a shaman— and one of his jokes. He 
acted like a woman and he said, "Half of me belongs up river and 
half down river. How are you going to 'fuss' me?" 

Men may wear female masks. There are certain parts women 
may not take, so men act for them. But there are female masks that 
women wear. Women never wear male masks. Women sing in 
the kadjim, too, to big drums, four feet in diameter, made of a sea 
animal's stomach on a spruce frame— five drums that can be heard 
a mile or more away. There may be as many as a hundred and 
fifty persons singing at one time in the kadjim. But in the power- 
ful dances— the hagerdelthlel— ordinary women do not sing, only the 
wives of chiefs and shamans. 

After a mask is made, it belongs in the kadjim for a year, and some 



Cries-for-salmon, a Ten'a Woman 



355 



man will appropriate it to wear for the year — or longer if he likes, 
and if he performs well what the mask represents. The shaman 
does not make the masks — he is too busy. He is charged with the 
welfare of the whole village, and he may be called upon in any emer- 
gency—at an eclipse, for example. Once long ago, it is said, there 
was a great famine, the winter ran into two winters, and Moon said 
to the shaman, "Whenever I go out of the sky, the people may not 
look, they should go inside and cover the smoke hole until I have 
performed my duty." Since then, at an eclipse, the shaman will send 
out fast runners to cry out, "Moon has gone under the sky! Stay in- 
doors!" The shaman himself will go on top of the kadjim and chant 
and go through the motions the moon taught. When the moon re- 
appears, the shaman will reenter the kadjim where every one has been 
sitting silent, — if a dance had been on at the time, it had stopped. 
The following morning all form a long line, the shaman in the lead. 
They encircle the village, forming an arc starting from the river and 
ending at the river, and, as I said before, taking in a half mile of 
woods above the village and half a mile below. They drum and sing 
and go through certain motions, each having a bundle of fish on his 
back. 

There are many other times, too, when the shaman takes charge or 
tells people what to do. I remember a great to-do over a frog 
that appeared in a house in the middle of the floor. The house had 
been built in the fall, after the ground was frozen, and one warm day 
in the dead of winter the frog thawed out of its hole and came out on 
the floor. This was an othlang, and it had to be righted at once. 
The shaman had to be paid to find out about it. Such an incident 
would never be forgotten. 

Muskrats come out from their holes in the bank of pond or lake, 
when the ice breaks loose in the spring. If a muskrat came out before, 
say in February or March, this, too, would be othlang and would 
have to be righted. 

Sometimes a whale will stray up the Yukon River, and when this 
happens, unless the whale is killed, there will be a great famine. 
Once, a whale went up river as far as Tenana, about nine hundred 
miles. There was great alarm, and one of the shamans, a shaman of 
medium powers (there are shamans of high, medium, and low pow- 
ers; nowadays, however, there are no very great shamans who, as in 



356 



American Indian Life 



the ancient days, can do everything; nowadays some shamans do one 
kind of thing, others, other things), this Tenana shaman went out 
single-handed and speared the stray whale. It was forty to fifty 
degrees below zero, he was nude from the waist up, and from the 
great exposure and the great strain, within a few days he died. The 
people were so grateful to the shaman for saving the village that they 
made a carving in split spruce of the shaman spearing the spouting 
whale, to place near his grave-box. 

When the caribou and deer began to decrease at Anvik, the people 
became greatly alarmed, they were afraid it was because of some- 
thing they had done, and they consulted the shaman. When he came 
out of his trance, he told them to paint seven deer on the board over 
the ridge pole of the grave-building of a certain shaman who had 
been a great hunter of caribou. Each deer was to represent a year's 
kill. Once, long ago, to preclude othlang, the shaman ordered a 
man to be thrown off the side of a certain mountain. 

At every death the shaman has to give the death stroke, that is, 
when it is time to send the spirit of the deceased away — on the fourth 
day for an ordinary person, some days later for a person of distinc- 
tion — the shaman has to strike the corpse on the chest. He sends 
him on his journey under the river to the village of the spirits — 
kethagyiye — a way where there are, at intervals, pillars of fire at 
which the dead may warm himself, and may cook. At the time of 
giving the death stroke, the shaman also drives away all the evil spirits 
that are around the village. 

I mentioned a cousin of Cries-for-salmon who died in childbirth. 
Her child was born alive, but as it was a girl and as the family were 
ordinary people — the deceased woman was a sister of the invalid wo- 
man I told about — the baby was put in the grave-box of the mother, 
in her bosom. Strong families with many songs, with spirit powers 
and hunting powers, might save babies in these circumstances, partic- 
ularly a boy baby; some woman in the family would adopt him. But 
the girl baby of an ordinary family would certainly not be let live. 
I remember the case of a girl baby the Mission people wanted to save. 
They took her, and she had the best of care from them, but in four 
months she died. 

Should a child die while it is still creeping, it is wrapped in some- 
thing the animals will not devour, like bark, and placed in the woods 



Cries-for-salmon, a Ten'a Woman 



357 



under a spruce sapling. As long as the tree lives, the spirit of the 
child lives, too, under its protection. The spirit dies with the tree. 

... I may say here that in getting wood or bush from the forest 
we do not take all there is in any place. We depend on the wood 
and bark. If we destroyed it, we would become vagabonds. 

The death of Cries-for-salmon's brother was by drowning. He 
had been drinking with the white trader, they were out in a boat 
together, the boat upset, and the Indian was drowned. When Cries- 
for-salmon's mother heard the news, she rushed out of the house, 
wailing with heart-rending cries, pulling her hair, and stripping 
herself to her waist. "My son, why have you left me?" she cried, 
looking to the North where the dead live. We could hear her cries 
a mile away, and we knew from her wailing songs the family of the 
deceased. Distinguished families have their own songs, and they 
make a greater outcry at death. Cries-for-salmon's mother is a 
woman with power. She has many strong songs. Her father had 
been a great hunter, with wolferene and bear songs. She is always 
consulted in the village, she knows her power, and there is no one to 
check her or to talk about her. So she stripped to the breeches — an 
ordinary woman would be afraid to strip lest people would talk — 
and she threw herself into the ice-cold water. She wanted to go on 
with her son, he was the only son left her. But they pulled her out. 
And they pulled out her husband who had also thrown himself in. 

After two or three hours, they found the body and took it home, 
transporting it in the oldest or most worn-out canoe at hand. As 
the spirit of the drowned man was supposed to be still in the water, 
nobody was allowed to go into the water. It would cause othlang. 
People were told not to use that channel for a year, and women were 
not to set out their fish nets in a place where there was a good place 
for pickerel. The evil spirit of the place might pull them over- 
board. I recall another place in the river where there are sand 
bluffs where, unless people pay homage, they do not feel safe. 

As usual, the mourners made new garments, new mittens, new 
moccasins, and a new cap for the dead man. The second night they 
danced and sang old songs, and the third night they danced to new 
songs. Cries-for-salmon's brother was a good bear hunter, so they 
danced bear dances which showed how a bear behaves and which 
would promote the increase of bears. Had he been a good seal 



358 



American Indian Life 



hunter or hunter of other animals, similarly they would have danced 
seal dances or other animal dances. Besides, had he died during a 
good game year, they might have carved the game animal on his 
grave-box. I recall a hunter with a good heart, who died in a good 
deer year, having a string of deer carved on his grave-box — to con- 
tinue the abundance of the deer. 

During the mourning time of work, of dancing and feasting, the 
corpse is placed so that the dead man can see what is going on and 
absorb it all. He is in a sitting position or, even if he is laid out, 
as happens nowadays, the body is propped up. The dead man has 
to report in the village of the dead how his favorite food was placed 
near him and how he was honored, up to the last. On the sixth day, 
after waiting for relatives from another village to arrive, after the 
death stroke, — in this case the white man was not allowed in to pray, 
for everything was done in the old way, — the dead man was put in 
the grave-box in a sitting position, his eyes open, frozen open, and 
his hands placed in a position to show his interest. He is thought to 
return to his grave-box from time to time, more particularly in 
summer, and he wants to see what is going on. For this reason, too, 
the sinew corded grave-box is set on a hillside overlooking the river, 
the face of the corpse turned towards the river, that the dead may 
see who are passing and what is going on in the village; likewise 
that the dead may be near his food supply, i. e. the fish in the river. 
In the late autumn, after the leaves have fallen, the older women 
take bits of their most valued food, salmon and, since the coming of 
the whites, biscuit, to place by the side of the grave-box for the dead 
to eat, and to bless the givers. At the same time the men, if not the 
old women, will put the grave place (tudatonte, where the body lies 
stiff, as we say) in order, removing vegetation and restoring im- 
plements to their place. Thus engaged, every one will be continually 
breathing out to the North. Towards spring these attentions to the 
dead are repeated, on a smaller scale. 

At death, food is put near the head of the corpse in the grave-box 
and, in the case of Cries-for-salmon's brother, the bows and arrows 
of the deceased were tied to a cross piece supported by upright sticks 
by the grave-box; but, as he was not a shaman or chief, no roof was 
built over the grave-box nor was the box ornamented. The dead 
man's things were given away to relatives; his rifle in particular was 



Cries-for-salmon, a Ten 'a Woman 359 

given to a member of the family distinguished for his ability and 
for his songs. After the distribution was complete, they set fire to 
the man's house, to drive away the evil spirit. 

Cries-for-salmon's brother, like most men to-day in Anvik, had 
only one wife — formerly a man might have as many wives as he 
could support, generally he had two wives, sometimes three. And 
she had not yet reached middle-age, the time when women tattoo 
lines on their chin — they tattoo according to the songs they have or 
their husband has, a shaman's wife will have more lines than a chief's 
wife — nevertheless, she decided not to marry again and she bobbed 
her hair. In this way she showed, even to men from other villages 
who did not know about her, that she grieved and that she was un- 
willing to associate with one without her husband's power. She 
wanted to prolong his powers, and to keep the atmosphere she was 
left in by him, from going over to another man. Having his at- 
mosphere and songs, she was strong and she felt spurred to care for 
herself, to accomplish almost anything. 

Sometimes a dying person will send for one to whom he wishes to 
pass on his powers. Then the dying one looks to the North, breathes 
on the other and spits on him (spittle is a part of you) . Once, Cries- 
for-salmon said to me, "I think a great deal of you. I would do al- 
most anything for you, and I would like to give you some of my 
power, but if I did, I would die within the year. I must live for my 
children— providing the Good One sees fit for me to live." Cries- 
for-salmon spoke this way to me because a while before she had 
said something to me which I did not understand, and it hurt her. 
An old man present said, "You can't expect much of him" (as a 
Mission boy). So Cries-for-salmon said to me, "With all the white 
man's knowledge, you have no intelligence whatsoever. Had I com- 
pleted my duties to my children, I could tell you more." 

Many widows do not bob their hair, but even so, unless a woman 
were of no account, she would not remarry within the year, she would 
wait two or three years. A woman is esteemed not only for waiting, 
she is valued according to the way she cared for her husband before 
he died, when he was helpless. A man's feelings are badly hurt if 
he is neglected in these circumstances. 

If a man and his wife died at the same time, let us say, from eat- 
ing poisonous berries, "devil berries" people call them, the two 



36o 



American Indian Life 



would be buried in the same grave-box. I had to move such a box 
once — the Mission wanted to make some use of the place. A string 
of beads fell out, not the kind we use to-day, these were very old, I 
think, got from Siberia in trade. They asked me for the beads in the 
village, but I kept them — until they disappeared. The people 
wanted them very much. 

The deceased is referred to as "the one who has gone from us. n 
The term for dead is used only of animals. Once I referred to 
some one as dead. They said, "What! He is not a dog. You 
are referring to a human being." Nor is the name of the dead ever 
mentioned; but people think of them, and whenever they think of 
them they turn to the North and breathe out. (A prolonged, gentle 
expiration, as Reed showed me.) So on return from a hunt, pass- 
ing the cemetery, a man will take a berry, eat half, and throw half 
in the direction of the cemetery, to some chief dying in a good season, 
and then look to the North and breathe out. 

I recall a visit up river I paid to Shagruk where lives my mother's 
sister. "My grandmother," I said to her. "Whose blood is this 
addressing me?" she asked. When she knew me, she began to wail, 
looking to the North — she was recalling my mother: "My sister, 
my sister, and here is my blood come again to me!" People think 
that if ever they said anything disrespectful about the dead, they 
would be laughing, as we say, at their own corpse. (In thinking of 
the dead, people appreciate the experience awaiting them.) 

About Christmas time there are ceremonials for the dead for three 
or four days. Persons who have lost their relatives in the past year 
are called upon by the shaman to contribute the bulk of the feast. 
"Who will contribute so many bundles of salmon?" asks the shaman, 
"so many sacks of seal oil, so many sealskins or caribou skins, so 
many cords of sinew (for sewing), the oesophagus of a white whale 
(used in trimming)?" People eat to their heart's content. Some- 
times they eat for the dead, sometimes they set aside the food — the 
best that can be got from the woods and waters. The missionaries 
are told that these are merely social feasts. Not that many of the 
old ceremonies have not indeed been cut out at Anvik. If a cere- 
monial can not be performed fully, in the proper way, people do not 
want it performed at all. Yet it is much against the wish of the 



Cries-for-salmon, a Ten'a Woman 



36i 



people to go without their ceremonials. The "feasts," as I have often 
told the missionary, are the only amusements of the people, and they 
would like to keep on with them just as they do at the conservative 
village of Shagruk. 

T. B. Reed and Elsie Clews Parsons 




:» » llll" '"■Illl"" Mill ' » '» llll' 



An Eskimo Winter 



The skin boat, propelled by the oars of the women, approached the 
shores. On the bundles of caribou skins which were piled up in the 
stern, steering cautiously through the floes of drift ice that dotted 
the surface of the sea, sat Pakkak, the boat-owner. The boat was 
heavily laden and a strong tide was running so that the women had 
to exert themselves, two on each oar, to make headway. Pakkak's 
son accompanied the boat in his kayak. He had been out seal hunt- 
ing in order to keep the traveling party supplied with provisions. 
The seals lay on the narrow deck of his boat which zig-zagged swiftly 
through the water, propelled by the strokes of the single paddle which 
he held in the middle, and which struck the water, now at the right 
and now at the left. 

The young man was the first to reach the shore. He brought his 
boat sideways close to the beach and climbed out of the small central 
hatch in which he had been sitting. He took off his harpoon and 
lance, his bird spear and float from under the holding thongs. Then 
he unlashed the seals, and hauled them ashore. After everything 
had been taken off, he lifted the light boat out of the water, turned it 
over, put his head into the opening and carried it up the shore. 

Meanwhile, the whole party in the large boat had reached the 
land. It was nearly high water. The travelers jumped ashore. 
The children and old people scrambled out of the boat, and the tent 
covers, poles and household goods were taken ashore. The caribou 
skins, which were the spoils of the summer's hunt inland, were de- 
posited on a dry spot. While the women climbed the barren hills 
to gather brush for building a fire, the men hauled up the boat, and 
put up the tent. The framework was quickly set up, the skin cover 
was thrown over it, and the lower part of the skin was ballasted with 
stones. When the women came back, the shrubs were put down in 
the rear of the tent. They were covered with heavy caribou skins, 
and thus the bed of the family was prepared. The seals were put 
down at the right and left of the doorway, inside. 

363 



364 



American Indian Life 



After a short time, the boats of Pakkak's brothers came in. They 
had started together in the morning, but had made unequal progress 
through the lanes of water that opened between the shifting ice floes. 
After unloading the boats, the brothers also put up their tents. 

Some of the women had piled up the fuel nearby. Pakkak fanned 
into flames the smoldering slow match which he was carrying 
along. As soon as he had obtained fire, the shrubs were lighted. 
Meanwhile, the hunter had opened one of the seals and removed 
the skin with the attached blubber. He cut off pieces of the 
blubber and threw them into the flames. The rectangular kettle, 
hollowed out of a block of soft soapstone, was filled with water and 
placed over the fire. The seal meat was put into it, and soon the 
water began to boil. When the meat was done, the men and women 
had finished their work, and Pakkak stood next to the kettle and 
shouted, "Boiled meat, boiled meat!" 

The men sat down in a circle near the fire. The women formed 
another circle. Pakkak took one piece of the meat out of the kettle, 
and handed it to one of the men; he gave another piece to one of 
the women. The first person bit into the meat and cut off a mouth- 
ful close to his lips. Then he passed the meat to his neighbor, who 
in the same way cut off a mouthful and passed the meat on. Thus, 
the whole company was provided for. 

The travelers were tired from their exertions, and retired to their 
beds in the rear of the tent where the whole family lay down, their 
heads toward the door. They covered themselves with the large 
blanket of caribou skins which extended over the whole width of the 
bed from one side of the tent to the other. 

Pakkak and his brothers, and Usuk, the half-witted old bachelor 
who lived with them, were the first to arrive at the place of the winter 
village, but within a few days other families came, who had been 
hunting in various districts. Men and women would sit together 
until late at night, telling of their summer experiences and of their 
success in hunting. Pakkak and his brothers had been hunting on 
the shores of the inland lake to which they used to resort, where 
they had fallen in with large herds of caribou. Some of the men 
drove the animals into the water, while others pursued them in their 
frail boats. The animals were easily overtaken and killed with 
the lance. 



An Eskimo Winter 



365 



Pakkak was the oldest one of five brothers who were all skillful 
hunters, and provided well for their families. They were re- 
nowned for their daring and enterprise. Therefore, their friend- 
ship was valued and their enmity feared. Pakkak was held in 
particular awe, for he was not only strong in body and skilled in the 
use of the knife, lance and bow, but he was endowed with super- 
natural powers. As a child he had sat on the knees of the old 
medicine man, Shark, who had been known to visit the moon and 
the great deity that controls the supply of sea animals. Through 
contact with him, the supernatural power had passed into Pakkak's 
body, and now his services were needed whenever sickness and 
famine visited the village. Thus it happened, that Pakkak and his 
brothers were both sought as protectors and shunned as possessed 
of unusual power. 

Pakkak did not misuse his power, but one of his brothers, 
Ikeraping, was rash in anger and overbearing in manner, and he 
was feared and hated. If it had not been for the combined strength 
of the brothers, the people of the winter village would have agreed 
to do away with Ikeraping in order to rid themselves of his ag- 
gressions. 

Among the later arrivals was No-tongue, whose party had been 
unsuccessful in the summer hunt. He had hunted in the narrow 
valleys between the ice covered highlands, and by mischance he had 
come at a time when the caribou had left for another feeding ground. 
He had only a few skins for his whole family, hardly sufficient to 
provide himself, his old mother Petrel, his wife, Attina, and his 
children, with the necessary winter clothing. However, he was not 
greatly perturbed. He relied upon good luck and the help of his 
friends who might be expected to assist him, in case they should have 
skins to spare. 

Gradually, one party after another arrived, and on the island 
which a short time ago had been solitary and quiet, little groups 
of huts sprang up and there was great activity. The women were 
busy with their household duties, getting fuel and mending clothes, 
while the men went out hunting in their kayaks and brought home 
game for their evening meal. The skins of the seals were scraped 
by the women, and stretched on the ground to be dried and later on 
worked into tent covers. 



366 



American Indian Life 



The wind had shifted seaward, and the floating ice had been 
driven away from the shore. It was getting cold, and the ponds 
began to be covered with a thin sheet of ice. Before the sea began 
to freeze over, it was necessary to bring the dogs back from the 
islands on which they had been placed over summer, and where 
they lived on what they could find on the beach or what they could 
hunt on the hills. Only a few of them had been taken along on the 
summer hunt, and with them were brought back a few litters of 
pups that were carefully nursed by the women. 

When the new ice began to form on the sea, the hunters could 
not go out any more in their boats, because the sharp edges of the 
ice would have cut the skin covers. For a few days, all were con- 
fined to the land. The hunters brought in ptarmigans and hares, 
but everybody looked anxiously forward to the time when the ice 
would be strong enough for the hunters to go out. A few days 
without new supplies are likely to empty the larder all too quickly. 
Besides, it was getting cold, and work on winter clothing could not 
be started until the sea was covered with ice. The Sea-Goddess 
would take bitter revenge if such a sin were committed. 

This year the weather was favorable, and the anxious days between 
summer and winter were not needlessly prolonged. After three 
cold days, the men could go out on the sea ice and wait at the edge 
of the open water for the seals to come up to breathe. Since the 
wind had brought back the drifting ice, the stretch of open water 
was not very wide, and the seals came near enough to be harpooned 
without difficulty, and to be drawn up to the ice. It was even pos- 
sible to venture out in the open water in the kayak, for the ice was 
not forming very rapidly. Thus an ample supply of meat was 
obtained. 

Meanwhile, the women were busy scraping and cleaning the 
caribou skins, and making the winter clothing for the family — the 
warm shirts and drawers of young caribou skins, and the heavy 
jackets and trousers of heavy skins; the stockings of light skins of 
young caribou, and the boots made from the skin of caribou legs, 
with soles of ground sealskins. Poor No-tongue had just enough 
for his family, and a few skins to spare. Unfortunately the catch 
of the whole community had been rather light, notwithstanding 
Pakkak's good luck. 



An Eskimo Winter 



367 



From now on, the men went out regularly every morning and 
came back in the evening, generally with an ample catch. One 
day they had gone out again and were scattered along the edge of 
the ice, watching for seals. During the day the sky clouded up, 
and a strong, seaward wind began to blow. It increased in strength, 
and an ominous cracking of the ice gave warning of danger. Hur- 
riedly the men loaded their sledges, and sped landward. Under their 
feet the ice began to crack and to yield to the pressure of the wind, but 
they succeeded in reaching land before the floe gave way and 
drifted out to sea. 

Only No-tongue's sledge was missing. He had been hunting on 
a projecting point of ice, and before he was even aware of his danger, 
the whole point had broken oft and was rapidly drifting out to sea. 
There was nothing for him to do but yield to his fate, and see whether 
the gale would exhaust itself soon, and whether by chance the floe that 
carried him might be blown back to land. Fortunately he had just 
killed a seal. He flensed it and made a little shelter of the fresh hide. 
His lance had to serve as a tent pole. He protected his tent cover 
against the wind by piling snow all over it. He made a receptacle 
for the blubber out of a piece of skin, and thus improvised a little 
lamp. Fortunately, too, he carried his fire drill and a little of the 
moss which is used for wicks ; so that he was able to start a little fire in 
his shelter. The gale was still blowing, and the angrv waves 
threatened to break up the floe on which he was drifting. When 
day dawned the land was far away. Soon, however, the wind 
subsided, and a swift tide carried the ice floe back, nearer and 
nearer the land. 

It had grown very cold. An icy slush was forming on the sur- 
face of the sea and the waves were rapidly calming down. The 
breaking up of the floe which seemed imminent through the night 
was no longer to be feared and immediate danger of drowning had 
passed. Still it was doubtful how the drift would end. With the 
changing tide, the current changed again, and the floe drifted away 
from the shore. The play of tides continued for days. Now the 
shore seemed near, so that the hopes of No-tongue were raised to 
a high pitch, and now the shore receded. In these davs of anxiety 
No-tongue never lost courage, but, mocking his own misfortune, he 
composed this song: 



368 American Indian Life 

Aya, I am joyful ; this is good ! 

Aya, there is nothing but ice around me, that is good ! 
Aya, I am joyful; this is good! 
My country is nothing but slush, that is good! 
Aya, I am joyful; this is good! 
Aya, when indeed, will this end? this is good! 
I am tired of watching and waking, this is good! 

His endurance and patience were finally rewarded. After a week 
of privations, he reached the shore not very far from the winter 
village. A few days of hard travel over the ice covered sea, and 
rocky hills brought him home to his family and friends. They had 
almost given him up for lost. 

As it grew colder the light tent no longer offered adequate pro- 
tection. The women sewed a new cover of sealskins and gathered 
loads of brush. They placed them on the outside of the summer 
tent, and spread the new covers over the whole structure. The door 
flap' was also transformed into a solid wall, and only a low opening 
was left, through which the people had to pass, stooping down low. 
This darkened the inside of the tent, which before had been fairly 
light because the front part of the tent cover was made of the trans- 
parent inner membrane of sealskin. Therefore the lamps were put 
into place. The long, rectangular entrance of the tent with its 
roof-shaped cover still served for keeping provisions, but just in 
front of the beds, the soapstone lamps— long crescent-shaped vessels 
—were placed. The wife of the tent owner took her seat on the 
bed in front of the lamp, where she sat in kneeling position letting 
her body rest between her heels. The lamp was filled with blubber 
that had been chewed to release the oil, and the straight front edge 
of the lamp was provided with a wick of moss which, when carefully 
treated with the bone pointer, gave an even, yellow flame that lighted 
and heated the hut pleasantly. 

Soon the snow began to fall, and the autumnal gales packed it 
stolid in every hollow in the ground, and piled it up against the 
sides of the huts. The heather-like shrubs were deeply buried under 
the snow, and all domestic work had to be done inside. The soap- 
stone cooking vessels were placed over the lamps, and all the meals 
were prepared in the house. The entrance to the hut was protected 



A.n Eskimo Winter 369 

against the cold by a low passage, built of snow. As it grew colder, 
the snow accumulated, and most of the people exchanged their tents 
for snow houses. The men cut out of an even snow bank blocks 
about thirty inches by eighteen inches high, and six inches wide. 
These they placed on edge, in the form of a circle. At one point, 
the upper edge of the row was cut down to the ground, and then 
sliced down to the right, so that it slanted up gradually. At the 
place where it had been cut down, a new block of snow was put on, 
leaning against the end of the first row and slightly inclined inward. 
One man was cutting the snow blocks outside, while his helper was 
placing the blocks from the inside,— each block being inclined 
slightly more inward so that a spiral wall was gradually formed. 
Finally the key block was inserted, and the builder cut a little door 
through which he came out. In the rear half of the circular room, 
a platform was built for the bed which was elevated a couple of 
feet above the ground, and at the same level, at the right and left 
of the entrance, a bank was erected. The bed platform was covered 
with shrubs and skins. The tent cover was used to line the inside 
of the snow house, being held to the wall by means of pegs and ropes, 
thus protecting the snow against the heat of the living room. The 
lamps were put in place on each side of the front of the bed plat- 
form, and the pots were hung over them. In front, just above the 
door, a window was cut which was covered with a translucent sheet, 
made of seal intestines sewed together, and a series of low vaulted 
structures was erected in front of the door, forming a passageway 
which protected the inside against the wind. 

When everything was done the family moved into the snow house. 
Two families occupied one house and each housewife had her seat 
in front of her lamp. The stores of meat were placed on the plat- 
forms at the right and left. Now the regular winter life began. It 
was bitter cold. The dogs huddled together in the entrance passages 
of the snow houses. 

Early in the morning, the men went out to the sledges. The 
shoeing of the runners, which were made of split and polished bone 
of whale, was covered with a thin sheet of ice. The hunter took 
some water in his mouth, and allowed it to run slowly over the 
shoeing. Then he polished it with his mittened hand. After the 
icing had been made smooth, he turned the sledge right side up. 



370 American Indian Life 

The harpoon was lashed on, the knife was suspended from the antlers 
that form the back of the sledge, which are used in steering it 
through rough ice. The hunters then put the dogs in harness. The 
light team started down to the beach. During the continued cold 
weather, the rise and fall of the high tides was forming a broken 
mass of heavy ice on the beach which, as the winter progressed, was 
constantly increasing in thickness. A beaten path led down through 
the broken masses to smooth floe. The sledge sped down, and the 
hunters went off to the sealing ground. At first the unwilling dogs 
had to be coaxed to go forward, and even spurred on by cries and by 
the use of the short handled whip, which the driver handled with skill 
and accuracy, calling upon the lazy dogs, and hitting them at the 
same time with the points of the whip. Gradually, the dogs warmed 
up, and ran along swiftly over the smooth floe. When they reached 
a part of the ice that was broken up by gales, and in which the uplifted 
floes were frozen together, the driver had to lift his sledge over the 
sharp edges and broken masses, and progress was slow and difficult. 

Finally the hunting ground was reached. The dogs took the scent 
of the breathing hole of a seal, and they rushed forward with such 
speed that the driver could hardly restrain them. At some distance 
from the hole he succeeded in stopping his team. He tied the dogs 
to a hummock so that they should not run away and then he inspected 
the seal hole to see whether it was still being visited by the seal. It 
was completely covered by snow, and discernible only to the experi- 
enced eye. He piled up a few blocks of snow on which he sat down. 
He laid his harpoon down cautiously, and waited. For hours he re- 
mained seated there, waiting for the snorting of the seal. The slight- 
est noise would frighten away the wary animal, and, notwithstanding 
the intense cold, the hunter could not stir. At last he heard the seal. 
Cautiously he lifted his harpoon, and sent it down vertically into the 
snow. It hit the seal which tried in vain to escape. The hunter 
broke the snow covering of the hole, and hauled the animal upon the 
ice where, with a swift blow on the head, he killed it. Before he 
loaded it on his sledge he cut it open, and took out the liver which 
served him as lunch. 

Meanwhile the short day had come to an end! The dogs were 
harnessed to the sledge, and the hunters returned home. When they 
arrived, they unloaded the sledge, unharnessed the dogs, and took off 



An Eskimo Winter 



371 



the heavy outer clothing. The hunter patted his coat carefully to 
remove the ice formed by the freezing of his breath. Then he put 
his coat in the storeroom and entered the house. As soon as he 
came in he took off his sealskin slippers, bird-skin slippers and stock- 
ings, which protected his feet against the cold, and his wife placed 
them on the rack over the lamp to dry. Then she looked them over 
and mended them carefully so that they should be ready on the fol- 
lowing day. 

When all the hunters had come back, those who had brought home 
no game flocked to the house of one of the successful hunters, who 
butchered his seal and gave to each man a share to eat in the house, 
or to take home to his family. They talked over the events of the 
day until late at night. 

This life had been going on quietly for all, without exciting events, 
when No-tongue's youngest child became ill. The boy refused food 
and drink, and household remedies did not avail. In her anxiety 
for the life of her darling, Attina appealed to Pakkak and. asked 
him to find out what ailed the child, and if possible to cure him. 
Pakkak went to No-tongue's hut. As soon as he came in, the lamps 
were lowered. He sat down on the bed facing the rear wall of the 
hut and began his incantation. His body shook violently when he 
called his protecting spirits to help him. He uttered unintelligible 
sounds and cries. 

Finally his incantation stopped. He addressed himself to Attina 
and said, "Have you sinned? Have you eaten forbidden food? 
Have you done forbidden work? What tabus have you trans- 
gressed?" She had asked herself what she might have done to bring 
about her child's sickness, and she remembered that she had scraped 
the frost from the window of her house, and that she had eaten seal 
meat and caribou meat on the same day. 

She replied, at once, "I confess! I have scraped frost from the 
window of my house. I have eaten caribou meat and seal meat on 
the same day. I have sinned." 

Pakkak replied, "It is well, my daughter that you have confessed. 
Now the evil consequences of your sins are forgiven. The black halo 
that I saw surrounding your body, and that has affected your child, 
has disappeared and the boy will soon recover." 



372 American Indian Life 

The lamps were lighted again. The confession of Attina's trans- 
gressions had appeased the supernatural powers and therefore the 
parents hoped for the recovery of their son. 

For a while the little boy seemed to improve, but suddenly he 
suffered a severe relapse, and before the help of Pakkak could be 
summoned, he died. At once No-tongue prepared to bury the boy. 
He stuffed his own nostrils with caribou hair to prevent contamina- 
tion by the exhalation from the corpse. The limbs were tied up with 
thongs and No-tongue carried his dead child out of the hut and up the 
hills. There he cut the thongs, and thus released the soul of the child. 
No-tongue covered the body with a vault of stones, being careful that 
no stone should weigh on it. He deposited the child's toys and re- 
turned home. For three days the whole family stayed in the house. 
No-tongue did not go out a-hunting. Attina did not clean her lamps. 
She did not move the caribou skin of the bed. She did not mend any 
clothing. To transgress these rules would have resulted in new mis- 
fortunes. 

After four days all the members of the family threw away their 
clothing which had been contaminated by the breath of the dead 
child, and it was only with the greatest difficulty that they secured 
enough skins from their neighbors to make a new set for the whole 
family. Through the charity of friends they were finally provided 
for. 

The death of the child, and the cares of the family weighed heavily 
on the mind of Petrel, No-tongue's mother. He himself was light- 
hearted and consoled himself with the thought that they might have 
other children in the future; but she was an old woman, and felt that 
she could not carry the burden of her years much longer. She loved 
her son and her grandchildren, and the thought haunted her mind 
that she might die in the hut, and that they might be compelled to 
throw away another set of winter clothing and be exposed to the hard- 
ships of the winter without adequate protection. If only she could 
die away from home, and thus spare her dear ones the consequences 
of another sickness and death. The thought preyed on her mind 
and finally she resolved to end her own life. 

The long Arctic night had set in, and only at noon came the sun 
near enough to the horizon to spread the faint light of dawn over the 
ice and mountains. One night when it was bitterly cold and the 



An Eskimo Winter 



373 



snow was drifting, lashed by a strong wind, old Petrel left the house 
and walked across the ice to a small island. There in a nook of 
barren rocks she piled up a wall of stones, and sat down behind it, in 
order to allow herself to freeze to death. Her thoughts dwelled with 
her children, and she was satisfied that she was not going to die of 
sickness in her bed, for then her future life would have been one of 
agony and torture in the lower world where there is only want and 
famine, where cold and struggle prevail all the year round. By 
choosing her own death she looked forward to a happy life in the 
upper world. There she was going to play ball, and her friends 
would see her joyful motions in the rays of the Aurora Borealis. She 
would enjoy comfort and plenty and the cares of this world, as well 
as the tortures of the lower world would be spared her. Her limbs 
became numb with the cold and she went to sleep, her mind filled with 
pleasant visions. 

During the night Attina roused herself to trim her lamp. She 
chanced to look about, and noticed that Petrel was not there. She 
called her husband who at once guessed what had happened. He 
gave the alarm and soon all the sledges were out. No tracks were to 
be seen in the drifting snow, and the whole party scattered in differ- 
ent directions to search for the old woman. To right and left along 
the coast, north and south they went on their sledges. Usuk, the 
bachelor, who did menial work for Pakkak, had joined the party. 
He, the despised and ridiculed one, found the old woman in time to 
save her from death. Notwithstanding her resistance, he carried her 
to his sledge, and hurried home. She was taken into the house, 
covered with a warm blanket and scolded for the unnecessary worry 
that she had given to her family and to her neighbors. She was ill- 
satisfied with her rescue, but submitted to the friendly influence of 
her light-hearted son. 

It seemed that with this event the ill luck of No-tongue had spent 
itself, and the rest of the winter passed quietly. The weather was 
propitious and no long continued gales kept the hunters at home. 
The snow was hard and crisp so that the hunting ground could be 
reached without difficulty. Early in February, the first rays of the 
sun struck the high mountains and although the cold was still intense, 
the daylight made hunting and work easier. 

Now and then visitors came in from distant villages to see their 



374 



American Indian Life 



relatives. Everybody flocked to the hut where they were visiting, 
to hear the news. There was much to tell about success in hunting, 
about marriage and birth, sickness and death. For months, the vil- 
lage had been cut off from all intercourse with the outside world, be- 
cause the strong currents that washed the foot of the promontories 
prevented the formation of ice, and only after the cold had continued 
long enough, was the sea covered by a continuous floe, which allowed 
the villagers to travel unhampered from place to place. 

One day a number of travelers were discovered, whose sledge, dogs 
and gait did not seem familiar. The news spread rapidly through 
the village and the women and children assembled on a point of 
vantage, straining their eyes in an attempt to discover who the visitors 
were. Soon, Pakkak recognized an old friend who lived many 
days' journey away, and whom he had not seen for many years. He 
shouted, "There is Eiderduck." When the women knew that the 
visitors were friends of Pakkak, they burst forth in song and laughter. 
They waved their arms and jumped about. The frightened children 
hid, crying, behind their mothers. Most of the men went down to the 
ground ice to meet the strangers, and to help them to unload their 
sledges. Pakkak led Eiderduck and his companions to a snow house, 
and treated them hospitably with frozen seal meat. 

While they were eating, the people crowded into the house. They 
sat on the bed platform, and squatted on the floor until there was no 
more room. Those who could not get into the house crouched in the 
entrance to get a glimpse of the visitors, and to hear what they had to 
say. All the older people had some friends in the villages through 
which the travelers had passed, and therefore their reports were lis- 
tened to with keenest interest, interest which communicated itself to 
the younger generation, who thus learned about the family relation- 
ships and the history of all the people who lived many miles up and 
down the coast line. 

One of the saddest stories that Eiderduck had to tell was that of 
some people who had been caribou hunting in the fjord Muddy- 
Water. In the fall, when they were preparing to move camp, the 
frost set in very suddenly, covering the sea with ice. Heavy snows 
fell in calm weather. The sledges and the dogs sank deeply into the 
soft snow so that the people were practically unable to move. Soon 
they were starving. Many died. In one house lived an old woman 



An Eskimo Winter 375 

with her three sons and a daughter. Her oldest son, Powlak, decided 
to go to the neighboring village to seek aid of the people. He left 
his only surviving dog with his mother, that she might use it for food 
after he was gone. Then he started on his dangerous tramp through 
the soft snow. 

A short time after Powlak had left, his mother missed the dog. 
She went in search of it, and found that its footprints led to one of 
the neighboring huts and did not come out again. For some time no 
sound had been heard in that hut. She thought that the people were 
dead and she had avoided going in. Now, however, when she needed 
the dog, she overcame her fear. She called in through the entrance 
and found that the people were alive, although hardly able to stir. 
She asked, "Is my dog here?" The house owner denied that it was 
there, saying that she had not seen it. The old woman, however, 
searched, and finally when she lifted the heather on the bed she found 
its skinned body. She became very angry and took the meat. The 
people were so weak and famished that they could not resist. She 
took the dog home and she and her children lived on it. Her neigh- 
bors soon died of exhaustion. The pangs of hunger had so hardened 
Powlak's mother, at other times a kind-hearted woman, that she only 
thought of her own salvation, and felt no pity for the sufferings of 
others. 

When Powlak reached the neighboring village, he found that the 
people had caught two whales in the fall of the preceding year. He 
told them that the people in Muddy- Water were starving, — that a 
few had tried to reach other places, but that they must have perished 
in the attempt, since nothing had been heard from them. Powlak's 
friends were very kind to him. They gave him food to eat and for a 
few days they did not let him return to his starving mother. They 
said to him, "Stay here. Why do you want to perish? Your mother, 
your brothers and your sister are certainly dead by this time." Pow- 
lak, however, said, "I am sure they are alive." When he insisted 
on returning as soon as he had recuperated, his friends gave him an 
old dog and a whale-bone toboggan which they loaded with whale 
meat, skin and blubber. He started on his way back. 

When he reached his home after untold difficulties, he went to 
the window of his mother's hut and asked, standing outside, "Are you 
all dead?" His mother replied, "There is life in us yet." Then he 



376 



American Indian Life 



went in, gave them the whale meat and whale skin, and learned of 
what had happened during his absence. The food which he had 
obtained gave him the strength to go out, and he had the good fortune 
to find a seal hole and as the season progressed, conditions became 
better and he was able to supply his family with food and clothing. 
A great number of the villagers, however, had starved to death. . . . 

It was late in the night when the crowd began to dwindle leaving 
Eiderduck and the other visitors to sleep. 

As the season progressed and the sun rose, the seals whelped. The 
skin of the young seal is white and wooly and highly prized for 
warm clothing. Therefore, the whole village set out to hunt for 
them. The dogs take the scent of the seal hole, and the poor pup is 
dragged out with a hook and the hunter kills it by stepping on it. 

One day when Pakkak was out hunting young seals, he found him- 
self suddenly confronted by a great polar bear, which was also out in 
pursuit of seals. He always made it a point to raise good hunting 
dogs, and the large wolf-like gray creatures were eager to attack the 
bear which tried to escape. Pakkak never hesitated when there was a 
chance to get a bear. He cut the traces of two of his strongest dogs, 
which ran in pursuit. When the bear saw that the dogs were about 
to overtake him, it climbed an iceberg and took its position on a 
narrow ledge where its back was protected by the sheer ice wall. It 
sat up on its haunches. The dogs scrambled up the slippery ice, and 
when Pakkak saw that they held the bear at bay, he cut the traces of 
the others, jumped off the sledge, and approached lance in hand. 
His knife was hanging in its scabbard at his side. 

The bear defended itself with its paws and teeth, and already one 
of the dogs lay bleeding on the ice. The bear, however, could not 
move on account of the swift attacks of the dogs. Pakkak approached 
fearlessly. With a swift throw he tried to pierce the bear's heart. 
His position was dangerous. The bear held the ledge, and by a 
single movement of its forelegs might throw the hunter down the 
steep side of the iceberg. With a swing of its powerful forelegs, it 
broke the lance. If Pakkak had not jumped back, he might have 
been caught in the embrace of the bear. There was nothing to do 
now, but attack the bear with the long hunting knife. He approached 
again, and watched until the bear, turning to the worrying dogs, 



An Eskimo Winter 



377 



exposed its side. Then with a powerful stroke, Pakkak stabbed it in 
the side. However, he was not quick enough, and, with its claws, the 
bear tore a deep gash in his shoulder. Then it rolled over, and fell 
down to the ice floe. 

Without paying any attention to his wound, Pakkak skinned the 
bear and butchered it and rolled it on the sledge. He spliced the 
traces of the dogs and turned back home where his success was 
greeted with joy. 

Then Pakkak tied the bladder and gall of the bear, together with 
his drill, to the tip of his spear which he put upright in the ground in 
front of his house. By this rite, the bear's soul which remains for 
three days with the body, must be appeased. 

The people asked Pakkak about his wound and his battle with the 
bear. He scoffed at the danger in which he had been pretending 
that to kill a fierce bear was to him no more of a task than to har- 
poon a harmless seal. His wife tended his wound, which was so 
deep that it took weeks to heal. 

One day, No-tongue had been out sealing with Pakkak's brother, 
Ikeraping. As luck would have it he was very successful, while 
Ikeraping, the strong and skillful hunter, had not killed a single 
seal. This annoyed Ikeraping, who was ashamed to go home with- 
out game. Therefore, he demanded of No-tongue that he should 
give up his seals to him. No-tongue refused, but Ikeraping became 
so furious and aggressive that No-tongue, who was by nature timid, 
gave way and let him have what he wanted. The injustice, how- 
ever, rankled in No-tongue's mind. It was not the first time that 
Ikeraping had lorded it over No-tongue, and No-tongue was afraid 
that sometime, in a quarrel with Ikeraping, he might be killed. No- 
tongue talked the matter over with the other people, but they were 
all too much afraid of Ikeraping and Pakkak and their brothers, to 
venture to do away with the aggressive Ikeraping. 

Now No-tongue was prompted to leave the village in which he 
had spent many years. For a long time he had been talking of the 
distant home from which he had come with his mother, when he was 
a very young man. At that time he wanted to see the world, and he 
had drifted from village to village along the whole coast line until 
finally he had settled down with his wife. The memory of his old 



378 American Indian Life 

home had never left him, and he longed to go back and see his rela- 
tives and the scenes of his childhood. The quarrel with Ikeraping 
strengthened his decision to leave this year, despite the ties which 
held him to the village where his children were born and were grow- 
ing up. 

Although the feeding of many dogs was a burden, on account of the 
large amount of meat they demanded, No-tongue had strengthened 
his^dog team by raising a number of pups. He had now an 
excellent team of ten dogs. His sledge was in good repair. And so, 
before the melting of the snow made traveling difficult, No-tongue 
was determined to depart. His wife would accompany him into the 
distant country which, to her, was a foreign land. It would take sev- 
eral years to accomplish the journey. 

The departure of No-tongue was the beginning of the breaking up 
of the winter village. The families were already planning for the 
summer hunt. Soon, the brooks would be running. The walrus 
would come near the shore. Whales would come blowing in the 
open water. Salmon would ascend the rivers. Young geese would 
be plentiful, and the caribou would come back. The time of 
happiness was approaching of which No-tongue once sang: 

Ayaya, beautiful is the great world when summer is coming at last! 
Ayaya, beautiful is the great world when the caribou begin to come! 
Ayaya, when the little brooks roar in our country. 
Ayaya, I feel sorry for the gulls, for they cannot speak, 
Ayaya, I feel sorry for the ravens, for they cannot speak. 
Ayaya. if I cannot catch birds I quickly get plenty of fish. 
Ayaya I 

Franz Boas 



APPENDIX 




NOTES ON THE VARIOUS TRIBES 



Crow 

The Crow Indians number about 1750. They now occupy a reserva- 
tion in southeastern Montana between Billings, Montana and Sheridan, 
Wyoming. This is near the center of their historic habitat, for their two 
main bands, the River Crow and Mountain Crow, roamed respectively 
from the Yellowstone-Missouri confluence southwards, and from east-cen- 
tral Montana southward into Wyoming. 

In point of language, the Crow belong to the Siouan family, forming to- 
gether with the Hidatsa of North Dakota a distinct subdivision. There is 
no doubt that some centuries ago they must have formed one tribe with the 
Hidatsa, since the languages are very closely related. In culture many dif- 
ferences have developed between the two tribes; e. g., the Hidatsa were al- 
ways semi-sedentary tillers of corn as well as hunters in historic times, while 
the Crow remained pure nomads before white influence. On the other 
hand, some important traits persisted in both groups after their separation. 
The principal enemies of the Crow were the Dakota; to a somewhat lesser 
extent the Blackfoot and Cheyenne. 

The most important publications on the Crow are : 

Curtis, Edward S. The North American Indian, vol. IV, New York, 1909. 
Lowie, Robert H. Social Life of the Crow Indians {Anthropological Papers of the 

American Museum of Natural History, vol. IX, part 2.). New York, 

1912. 

Societies of the Crow, Hidatsa and Mandan Indians {ibid., XI, part 3.). New 
York, 1913. 

The Sun Dance of the Crow Indians {ibid., XVI, part 1.). New York, 1915. 
Notes on the Social Organization and Customs of the Mandan, Hidatsa and 

Crow Indians {ibid., XXI, part 1.). New York, 19 17. 
Myths and Traditions of the Crow Indians {ibid., XXV, part I.). New 

York, 1918. 

The Tobacco Society of the Crow Indians {ibid., XXI, part 2.). New York, 
1919. 

1 The notes for this appendix have been contributed, except in a few instances, by the 
respective authors of the tales. 

381 



3^2 



American Indian Life 



Blackfoot 

At the time of discovery, these Indians resided east of the Rocky Moun- 
tains in what is now Montana, and Alberta, Canada, and were grouped 
into three tribes: Blackfoot, Blood, and Piegan. The Piegan were the 
largest and dominant tribe, but all were in the habit of speaking of them- 
selves as Blackfoot. How this name originated is not known, though there 
is a story that it was given them by other Indians because their moccasins 
were always stained with the black loam of the rich prairies of Alberta. 

Closely affiliated with the Blackfoot were the Sarsi, a small Athabascan- 
speaking tribe, and the Prairie Gros Ventre, closely related to the Arapa- 
ho. Thus the Blackfoot group — confederacy of early writers — was com- 
posed of at least five distinct tribal units. Their nearest cultural contem- 
poraries are the Plains-Cree, Assiniboin, Crow, and Shoshoni. 

The Blackfoot speak a language belonging to the great Algonkian family 
of eastern North America. The presumption is, therefore, that they mi- 
grated from the woodlands of the east to the western plains, but this was 
very long ago. 

The surviving remnants of the tribe now number less than 5,000, fully 
half of whom live in the State of Montana, and less than half of these are 
of pure descent. 

For further information on the Blackfoot and other Plains tribes, the 
reader is referred to: 

North American Indians of the Plains (Handbook series, No. 1 American Museum 
of Natural History, 1912), by Clark Wissler, and the following monographs by Dr. 
Wissler, published in the Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natu- 
ral History: 

Mythology of the Blackfoot Indians, vol. II, part 1. 

The Material Culture of the Blackfoot Indians, vol. V, part 1. 

The Social Life and Ceremonial Bundles of the Blackfoot Indians, vol. VII. 

Societies and Dance Associations of the Blackfoot Indians, vol. XI, part 4. 

Sun Dance of the Blackfoot Indians, vol. XVI, part 3. 

Some Protective Designs of the Dakota, vol. I, part 2. 

Societies and Ceremonial Associations in the Oglala Division of the Teton-Dakota, 
vol. XI, part 1. 

Riding Gear of the North American Indians, vol. XVII, part 1. 
Costumes of the Plains Indians, vol. XVII, part 2. 

Structural Basis to the Decoration of Costumes among the Plains Indians, vol. 
XVII, part 3. 

Decorative Art of the Sioux Indians (Bulletin, American Museum, vol. XVIII, 
part 3-)- 



Appendix 



383 



Menomini 

The Menomini are a small tribe (1745 in number) of the Algonkian 
stock, who formerly lived on the west shore of Green Bay, Wisconsin, and 
who now dwell on their reservation, about forty miles inland from their 
former headquarters, on the upper waters of the Wolf River, one of their 
old hunting grounds. 

In culture the Menomini belong to the Central Algonkian group of 
Woodland Indians, and have long been closely associated with the Siouan 
Winnebago and the Algonkian Sauk, Fox, Potawatomi, and Ojibwa. 

Dr. Skinner's publications on the Menomini are as follows: 

In the Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History, vol. 
XIII which is composed of: 

Social Life and Ceremonial Bundles of the Menomini Indians. 
Societies and Ceremonies of the Menomini. 

Folk Lore and Mythology of the Menomini Indians, 1 and in Indian Notes and 
Monographs, Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation: 
Medicine Ceremony of the Menomini Indians, vol. IV, 1920. 
Material Culture of the Menomini Indians, (unnumbered), 1921. 

1 In collaboration with John V. Satterlee, a Menomini. 



384 



American Indian Life 



Winnebago 

The Winnebago number to-day about 3000 people of whom 1100 to 
1500 live in Nebraska directly north of the Omaha reservation, and the 
rest in Wisconsin, mainly in Jackson county but scattered all over the re- 
gion directly to the north, east and west of that county, also. When first 
discovered, toward the middle of the seventeenth century, they occupied 
the region between Green Bay and the Wisconsin River to the west, and 
their villages extended to the southern portions of Lake Winnebago to the 
south. Toward the end of the seventeenth century and beginning of the 
eighteenth century, we find them as far west as the Mississippi and as far 
south as Madison, Beloit, and even northern Illinois. While, unquestion- 
ably, they had been in part forced into this region by the war-like activities 
of the Fox Indians, there seems sufficient evidence to show that they had 
always roamed over the greater part of this country. 

After their discovery by the French, much of their time was spent in 
fighting with the Foxes by whom they seem generally to have been defeated. 
They were, from the beginning, exceedingly faithful to the French. To 
what degree they were influenced by the French missionaries and traders, 
it is difficult to say, but in all probability this influence was greater than has 
generally been supposed. After the cession of the old Northwest to the 
United States, they remained rather quiet but were definitely implicated in 
the Black Hawk War. 

About the middle of the nineteenth century, they were forc.bly trans- 
ferred to Nebraska but many of them made their way back to Wisconsin, 
and these, together with scattered Winnebago, who had managed to escape 
the enforced transference to Nebraska, form the majority of those now 
livina in Wisconsin. Since their partial removal to Nebraska, a number 
of mtnor differences in dialect and customs have developed between the two 
divisions The division in Wisconsin is undoubtedly the more conservative. 

The immediate neighbors of the Winnebago were the Menomini to the 
north, and the Fox to the south; with these tribes they were always in inti- 
mate 'contact. With the Menomini they seem always to have been on 
peaceful terms, but with the Fox they were frequently at war. They seem 
have known the Potawatomi quite well, and the Ojibwa fairly well. 
The eastern Dakota they also knew to a certain extent. In the main, how- 
ever they knew their Algonkian neighbors (Menomini, Fox, Potawa- 
tomi) best and they were profoundly influenced by these tribes in their 
material culture. The mythology and certain religious notions of their 
Central Algonkian neighbors they also adopted, but these seem to have 
been kept apart and distinct from their old Winnebago mythology and re- 



Appendix 385 

ligion. In their social organization, they were totally uninfluenced and, on 
the contrary, influenced their neighbors profoundly. 

They present the interesting spectacle of a people entirely surrounded by 
alien tribes, absolutely cut off from all communication with groups speaking 
related languages and having similar civilizations, who nevertheless have 
preserved many archaic Siouan cultural traits. What they have, however, 
they have in part completely assimilated, in part kept distinct. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Radin, Paul. The Ritual and Significance of the Winnebago Medicine Dance. 

{Journal of American Folklore, vol. XIV, pp. 149-208. 191 1.) 
Winnebago Tales. (Journal of American Folklore, vol. XXII, pp. 288-313, 
1909.) 

Social organization of the Winnebago Indians. In Geological Survey of 

Canada. (Museum Bulletin, 10. Anthrop. ser. 5. 191 5.) 
The Peyote Cult of the Winnebago. (Journal of Religious Psychology, vol. 

VII [1914L PP- 1-22.) 
Autobiography of a Winnebago Indian. (University of California Publications 

in American Archaeology and Ethnology, XVI [1920], No. 7.) 
The Winnebago Indians. (Report of Bureau of American Ethnology.) 

(In press.) 



386 



American Indian Life 



Meskwaki 

The Meskwaki Indians at present live in the vicinity of Tama, Iowa, 
and are 350 in round numbers. Officially, all are listed as full-bloods, 
but the fact is that there is a good deal of old white (French and English) 
mixture — practically none within the last sixty years. And many have 
Sauk, Potawatomi, and Winnebago blood. On the rolls the Meskwaki are 
carried as Sauk and Fox of the Mississippi ; but this is due to the fact that 
the Federal government long ago legally consolidated the two tribes, 
though they are, even to-day, distinct in language, ethnology, and mythol- 
ogy. Fox is but one of the many synonyms for the Meskwaki Indians. 

Their native name, me sgw A ki A ki, in the current syllabary, means 
"Red-Earths." 

The Meskwaki linguistically are closely related to the Sauk and Kicka- 
poo, more remotely to Shawnee, and to the Penobscot, Malecite, etc., of 
Maine and adjacent parts of Canada. They are also comparatively close 
to the Cree and Menomini. Culturally the Sauk, Fox, and Kickapoo are 
very near each other, and show woodland traits predominantly, with 
touches of those of the plains. They are also close to the adjacent Siouan 
tribes. The physical type of the Meskwaki has not been worked out; from 
Michelson's unpublished data it would appear that beside a mesocephalic 
tribe, a brachycephalic one also occurs. This last is probably due to inter- 
marriage with Winnebagos. Moderate occipital deformation occurs ow- 
ing to the use of hard cradle boards; and so the problem is not simple, for 
moderate deformation is not always easy to detect. 

A practically complete bibliography on the Meskwaki is given by Michel- 
son, Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences, vol. IX, pp. 485, 

593-59 6 - since that time ( J 9 X 9) but little has a PP eared - A number of 
volumes on the Meskwaki by Michelson will eventually be published by the 
Bureau of American Ethnology. 1 The most important publications on the 
Meskwaki are: 

Major Marston. Letter to the Rev. Jediah Morse, 1820. 

Forsyth, Thomas. Account of the Manners and Customs of the Sauk and Fox 
Nations of Indians' Traditions, 1827. (This, and the preceding are 
readily accessible in E. Blair's Indian Tribes of the Upper Mississippi 
and Great Lakes Region, vol. II, pp. 137-245)- 

Jones, William. Fox Texts, 1907. 

The Algonkin Manitou {Journal of American Folklore, vol. XVIII, pp. 183- 

190 [1905])- 

Mortuary observances and the adoption rites of the Algonquin Foxes of Iowa 
(Congres International des Americanists, XVI: 263-277 [1907])- 

1 See The Owl Sacred pack of the Fox Indians. Bulletin 72, Washington, 1921. 



Appendix 



387 



Algonquian (Fox) (revised by Truman Michelson: Handbook of American 
Indian Languages, Bulletin 40, of the Bureau of American Ethnology 
part 1 ; pp. 735-873 [191 0)- 

Michelson, Truman. Preliminary report on the linguistic classification of Alqon- 
quian Tribes (28th Annual Report of the Bureau of American Eth- 
nology, pp. 22i-290b [1912]). 



388 



American Indian Life 



Montagnais 

The Indians of the Algonkian linguistic stock known in literature as the 
Montagnais, inhabit the vast region north of the St. Lawrence river from 
the coast of Labrador on the Atlantic, westward through to the St. Maurice 
river near Quebec, and northward to the height of land dividing the Arctic 
watershed from that of the St. Lawrence. They number not far from 
3,000 souls widely scattered in small bands comprising certain dialectic 
and ethnical groupings. Within certain limits they are nomadic, subsisting 
entirely by hunting and fishing, never warlike except in their resistance to 
the Iroquois, docile and orderly. They were visited early in the 17th 
century by Jesuit missionaries who have left us the only specific literature 
dealing with their mode of life. Their culture is characterized by extreme 
simplicity, almost barren in its social, political and ceremonial aspects 
though rich in the field of activity concerned with hunting, fishing and trav- 
eling. Roughly speaking, the Montagnais group lends itself to a three- 
fold division, the ethnological and dialectic peculiarities following some- 
what the same limits: those of the coast, the typical so-called Montagnais; 
those of the interior of the northwestern part of the Labrador peninsula, 
and those of the northeastern interior. The latter have come to be known 
as the eastern Naskapi. The whole group is closely related to the Cree of 
Hudson's Bay, outside of which area its next closest affinities lie with the 
Wabanaki group of the region south of the St. Lawrence, from New Hamp- 
shire to Newfoundland. 



Appendix 



389 



Iroquois 

The Iroquois Confederacy consisted of five, later six, tribes, speaking the 
Iroquois language. In addition to these tribes there were others belonging 
to the same linguistic stock, such as the Hurons, the Cherokee, and others. 
The Confederacy or League of the Iroquois was formed towards the end 
of the sixteenth century and embraced, at that time, the following tribes: 
Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga and Seneca. In the beginning of the 
eighteenth century they were joined by the Tuscarora. 

The original area occupied by these tribes embraced the following 
district: nearly the entire valley of the St. Lawrence, the basins of Lake 
Ontario and Lake Erie, the southeast shores of Lake Huron and Georgian 
Bay, all of the present New York State except the lower Hudson valley, 
all of central Pennsylvania, and the shores of Chesapeake Bay in Mary- 
land, as far as Choptank and Patuxent Rivers. 

According to some computations, the number of Iroquois villages about 
1657 was about twenty-four; towards 1750 their number may have grown 
to about fifty. Towards the end of the seventeenth century, the total 
number of confederated Iroquois may have reached 16,000, which is also 
the approximate number of the present Iroquois, including numerous mixed 
breeds, who occupy a number of reservations in northwest New York and 
southeastern Canada. 

The tribes of the League are usually classed in the so-called Woodlands 
culture area. They have, however, developed a civilization which is 
greatly specialized when compared with other tribes of that area, especially 
in social and political organization. The Iroquois exerted a powerful 
influence on some of their neighbors, notably on some of the eastern 
Algonkian tribes, whose socio-political organization bears unmistakable 
traces of Iroquois influence. The Iroquois of the League greatly devel- 
oped a consciousness of what to-day might be designated as a historic 
mission. Their leaders believed that the Great Peace, for which the 
League stood, was fated to spread over all of the Indian tribes. In their 
attempts to induce other tribes to accept the principles of the League, 
they carried on an almost unceasing warfare against such tribes as the Neu- 
trals, the Algonkians and the Sioux, and their combined forces proved 
irresistible to their less efficiently organized neighbors. Ultimately, they 
were checked in the south by their own relatives, the Cherokee. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Hale, Horatio. The Iroquois Book of Rites. 

Morgan, Lewis H. The League of the Iroquois (The 1904, one volume edition.) 



390 



American Indian Life 



Parker, A. C. The Iroquois Uses of Maize and Other Food Plants. 

Handsome Lake Doctrine. 

The Constitution of the Iroquois League. 
Hewitt, J. N. B. Orenda and a Definition of Religion. (American Anthropologist, 
vol. IV, 1902.). 

Iroquoian Cosmology (21st Annual Report of the Bureau of American Eth- 
nology.). 

Seneca Fiction, Legends and Myths (32nd Annual Report of the Bureau of 
American Ethnology.). 
Goldenweiser, Alexander A. Summary Reports on Iroquoian Work (Geological 
Survey, Ottawa, Canada, 1912-13, 1913-14.). 



Appendix 



391 



Lenape or Delaware Indians 

The Lenape or Delaware Indians were once a numerous people form- 
ing a confederacy of three closely related tribes: the Unami or Delawares 
proper, the Unalachtigo or Unalatko, and the Minsi or Muncey, first en- 
countered by the whites in what is now New Jersey, Delaware, eastern 
Pennsylvania, and southeastern New York, but at last accounts reduced to 
some 1900 persons, scattered about in Oklahoma and in the Province of 
Ontario, Canada, with a few in Wisconsin and Kansas. 

Algonkian in language, their culture was typical of the northern half of 
the Eastern Woodland area, being most nearly related, as might be ex- 
pected, to that of the Nanticoke and other Algonkian tribes adjoining them 
to the south, and that of the Mohican of the Hudson valley and of the 
Long Island tribes; and resembling in many general features the cultures 
of the New England tribes, of the Central Algonkian peoples, and of the 
Shawnee. The culture of the Lenape, that of the Minsi, in particular, 
also shows some special resemblances in addition to the general ones com- 
mon to the whole Eastern Woodland, to that of the Iroquois tribes, al- 
though the latter speak dialects of an entirely different language. 

Among the works dealing wholly or mainly with Lenape ethnology are 
the following : 

Brinton, Daniel G. The Lenape and their Legends, Philadelphia, 1885. 
Harrington, M. R. Some Customs of the Delaware Indians. (Museum Journal 

of the Museum of the University of Pennsylvania, vol. I. No. 3.). 
Vestiges of Material Culture among the Canadian Delawares. (American 

Anthropologist, N. S. vol. X, No. 3, July-Sept., 1908.). 
A Preliminary Sketch of Lenape Culture. (American Anthropologist, N. S. 

vol. XV, No. 2, April-June, 1913.). 
Religion and Ceremonies of the Lenape (in press). 
Political and Social Organization of the Lenape (in Ms.). 
Material Culture of the Lenape (in Ms.). 
Lenape Folklore (in Ms.). 
Heckewelder, John. An Account of the History, Manners and Customs of the 

Indian Nations who once inhabited Pennsylvania and the neighboring 

States. (Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, vol. I, 

Philadelphia, 1 8 19.) . 

Loskiel, George H enry. History of the Mission of the United Brethren among 
the Indians in North America, London, 1794. 

Skinner, Alanson. The Indians of Greater New York, Cedar Rapids, 1915. 

The Lenape Indians of Staten Island. (Anthropological Papers of the Amer- 
ican Museum of Natural History, vol. Ill, New York, 1909.). 



392 



American Indian Life 



The Indians of Manhattan Island and vicinity. (Guide leaflet No. 41, Amer- 
ican Museum of Natural History.) 
Zeisberger, David. David Zeisberger's History of the Northern American Indians. 

Edited by Archer Butler Hulbert and William Nathaniel Schwarze. 
(Ohio Archaeological and Historical Quarterly, vol. XIX, Nos. 1 and 
2, Columbus, 19 10.) 



Appendix 



393 



Creeks 

The Creek confederacy was based upon a number of tribes speaking the 
Muskogee language, usually called Creek, but many other tribes were 
taken into the organization in course of time, most of them speaking re- 
lated tongues but a few of entirely distinct stocks. From estimates made 
by early writers it would seem as though the Creek population had in- 
creased from about 7000 in 1700 to 20,000 at the time of the removal 
(1832). This shrunk again after that date so that the Indian Office re- 
port of 19 19 gives 11,952 "Creeks by blood," to which must be added 
2141 "Seminole by blood," 585 "Florida Seminole," and 192 Alabama in 
Texas. The Seminole and Alabama formerly belonged to the Confeder- 
acy. Probably this includes a great many individuals with very little 
Indian blood, because the Census of 19 10 returned only about 9000 all 
told. 

When first known to Europeans the tribes of this connection occupied the 
eastern two-thirds of Alabama and all of what is now Georgia, except the 
northernmost and easternmost parts. Some of the Indians, then found 
upon the Georgia coast, seem afterward to have moved into the hinterland 
to unite with the confederate body. 

The confederacy was gradually extending itself by taking in smaller 
peoples driven from their own country or suffering from more powerful 
neighbors, among them the Yuchi and a part of the Shawnee. Even the 
Chickasaw, though sometimes at war with them, had a sort of semi-official 
membership and it is probable that more of the tribes east and south would 
have been gathered into the league had it not been for the coming of the 
whites. They were, however, equalled and probably excelled in numbers 
by the Cherokee on their northeastern border, and the Choctaw to the 
southwest, with both of which tribes they waged bitter wars as well as 
with the Apalachee and Timucua southeast of them. These differences 
were, however, aggravated considerably by the rival Spanish, English, and 
French colonists. It should be understood that the Creek Confederacy 
was a growing American national organism, comparable to the Iroquois 
Confederacy, the states of Central America and Mexico and some of those 
of the Old World. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Adair, James. History of the North American Indians. 
Bartram, William. Travels. 

(His paper in vol. Ill, American Ethnological Society. Trans.) 



394 



American Indian Life 



Bossu, M. Nouveaux Voyages, etc., (Alabama Indians.), 1768. 

Gatschet. A Migration Legend of the Creek Indians, (vol. I in Brinton's Library 

of Aboriginal Literature; vol. II in Trans. Academy of Science of St. 

Louis.). 

Hawkins, Benjamin. A Sketch of the Creek Country, (Georgia Historical Society 

Collections, vol. Ill, 1848.). 
Swan. Schoolcraft, Indian Tribes, vol. V. 

S wanton, John R. Early History of the Creek Indians and Their Neighbors. 
(Bureau American Ethnology [in press]). 



Appendix 395 
Apache 

The various Apache tribes of Arizona number about 5000. They are 
about equally divided between the two adjoining reservations, San Carlos 
and White Mountain. Their habitat was the upper drainage systems of 
the Salt and Gila Rivers. Culturally, they are related to the Pima and the 
Yuman-speaking Yavapai and Walapai to the west. They are related 
also linguistically, and in pre-Spanish times culturally, to the Navaho who 
live north of them. In a general way they participate in the social and 
religious life characteristic of the whole Southwestern area. 

Bourke, John G. The Medicine Men of the Apache (9th Annual Report of the 

Bureau of American Ethnology.) 
Goddard, P. E. In the Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural 
History, vol. XXIV: 
Myths and Tales from the San Carlos Apache, part 1. 
Myths and Tales from the White Mountain Apache, part 2. 



396 



American Indian Life 



Navaho 

The Navaho are an Athabascan tribe of nomadic or semi-nomadic 
habit occupying a reservation in northeast Arizona, northwest New Mexico 
and southeast Utah. In 1906 they were roughly estimated at 28,500. 
Sheep raising and weaving are their main industries. In many ways their 
ceremonial life appears like that of their neighbors, the Pueblo Indians, but 
the relationship of the two peoples in ceremonialism, as in other respects, 
has not been studied. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Matthews, Washington. Navaho Legends (Memoirs American Folklore Society, 

V. 1897. [See bibliography] ). 
The Night Chant, a Navaho Ceremony. (Memoirs American Museum of 

Natural History, VI, 1902.) 
Franciscan Fathers, The. An Ethnologic Dictionary of the Navaho Language. 

1910. 

Goddard, P. E. Indians of the Southwest. (Handbook Series, No. 2. American 
Museum of Natural History, 1921.) 



Appendix 



397 



Zuni Indians 

Zuni is one of the towns of the Pueblo or Town Indians of the south- 
west. It is situated about the middle of New Mexico, near the Arizona 
border. The population of Zuni and its outlying settlements is estimated 
at about 1600. 

The Pueblo Indians live in about thirty towns in New Mexico and 
Arizona, and number about 10,000. They are usually classified according 
to language into four or five stocks, the Hopi of Arizona, the Ashiwi or 
people of Zuni, the Keres of Acoma and Laguna to the west and, to the 
east, of five towns on the Rio Grande, and, also in the east, the Tanoans in- 
cluding the Tewa and the people of Jemez. 

When the Spanish conquistadores came up from Mexico into this 
country, they found the people distributed more or less as they are to-day, 
although since that time many old sites have been deserted and new sites 
built upon. With increasing protection for life and property, there has 
been a tendency to move down from the mesa tops to the better watered 
and more fertile valleys. 

At the arrival of the Spaniards, and no doubt long before, the people 
were not only builders, but skillful potters and farmers, practising alike 
dry farming and irrigation. From their economy and complex ceremonial 
life, they may be considered the northernmost fringe of the maize cul- 
ture area of Middle and South America, that great reach which included 
the Inca Kingdom of Peru and the Mayas and Aztecs of Mexico. 

Wheat, peach trees and watermelons were brought to the Pueblo Indians 
by the Spaniards, as well as sheep, cattle, horses and donkeys. And the 
Spaniards established Franciscan missions and a secular governorship, 
thereby affecting religion and form of government, to what extent is still 
an open question. Less obscure, but no less interesting is the effect that 
modern industry is having upon the culture; as might be expected, Ameri- 
can trade has been disintegrating, but entirely destructive it has not been, 
as yet. 

The ceremonial Mr. Culin describes, belongs either to the I hlewekwe 
Society or to the Big Fire-brand Society. See "The Zuni Indians," 
pp. 483-8, 502-1. After the dance, the saplings with butts tapered and 
painted red are thrown down a rocky pitch in one of the buttes of the mesa 
to the north. Specimens may be seen in the American Museum of Natural 
History and in the Museum of the University of California. 

That the skull acquired by Mr. Cushing was of questionable authenticity 
is a fact at present known at Zuni ; for it is said there that it was because of 
this Tenatsali came to his premature death. 



398 



American Indian Life 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Culin, Stewart. American Indian Games. (24th [1906] Annual Report of Bu- 
reau of American Ethnology.) 

Cushing, F. H. Zuni Fetiches. (2nd [1880-1] Annual Report of Bureau of 
American Ethnology.) 
My Adventures in Zuni. (The Century Magazine, N. S. Ill, 1882.) 

Outlines of Zuni Creation. Myths. (13th [1891-2] Annual Report of Bu- 
reau of American Ethnology.) 
Zuni Folk Tales. New York & London, 1901. 

Zuni Breadstuffs. (Republished in Indian Notes and Monographs, vol. VIII. 
Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation, 1920.) 
Dumarest, N. Notes on Cochiti, New Mexico. (Memoirs American Anthropo- 
logical Association, vol. VI, No. 3. 19 19) 
Fewk.es, J W. (For Hopi monographs see his Biography and Bibliography.) 
Kroeber, A. L. Zuni Kin and Clan. (Anthropological Papers of the American 

Museum of Natural History, vol. XVIII, part 2. 1917.) 
Parsons, E. C. Notes on Zuni. (Memoirs, American Anthropological Associa- 
tion, vol. IV, Nos, 3, 4. 191 7.) 
Notes on Ceremonialism at Laguna. (Anthropological Papers of the Amer- 
ican Museum of Natural History, vol. XIX, part 4. 1920. 
American Anthropologist, vols. XVIII, XIX, XX, XXI, XXII, XXIII. 
Journal American Folklore, vol. XXIX No. 113; vol. XXXI, No. 120; vol. 

XXXIII, No. 127. 
Man, vol. XVI, No. 11; vol. XVII, No. 12; vol. XIX, No. 3; No, 11; 
vol. XXI, No. 7.) 

Stephen, A. M. (For articles on Hopi ceremonials see American Anthropologist, 
vol. V; Journal American Folklore, vols. V. VI.) 

Stevenson, M. C. The Zuni Indians (23rd [1901-2] Annual Report of Bureau 
of American Ethnology.) 
The Sia. (nth [1889-90] Annual Report of Bureau of American Eth- 
nology.) 

Voth, H. R. (Several valuable monographs on Hopi ceremonials in the Anthropo- 
logical Series of the Field Museum.) 



Appendix 



399 



Havasupai 

The Havasupai are a small Yuman-speaking tribe whose permanent 
village is in Cataract Canyon, a southern tributary of the Grand Canyon of 
Colorado, in northern Arizona. Their hunting territory is that portion 
of the Arizona Plateau seen by tourists to the Grand Canyon. The tribe 
numbers 177 (214 in 1 88 1 ) and is therefore dependent on friendly rela- 
tions with the neighboring Walapai, who share their tongue, to the west, 
and the Navaho and pueblo-dwelling Hopi to the east. Their enemies 
were the Yavapai and Apache south of their range and the Paiute, north 
across the Grand Canyon. Of the little that has been written about these 
people, the following are dependable: 

Coues, Elliot. On the Trail of a Spanish Pioneer. The Diary and Itinerary of 
Francisco Garces. (A curious record by their discoverer, written in 
1776), vol. II, pp. 335-347. 403-409. New York, Francis P. Harper, 
1900. 

Cushing, F. H. The Nation of the Willows. (A vivid account of the country and 

the first description of its people.) Atlantic Monthly, vol. I, Sept., 

Oct., 1882, pp. 362-374, 541-559. 
Shufeldt, R. W. Some Observations on the Havesu-pai Indians. (Proceedings, 

U. S. National Museum, Washington, D. C, 1891, vol. XIV, pp. 387, 

et seq.) 

Spier, Leslie. The Havasupai of Cataract Canon. (American Museum Journal, 
New York, December, 1918, pp. 636-645.) 
(A full account of tribal customs is to be published by the same author in the 
Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History.) 



400 



American Indian Life 



Mohave 

The Mohave are of Yuman stock. They have lived for more than three 
centuries in the bottomlands of the Colorado river where the present states 
of California, Nevada, and Arizona adjoin. Down-stream to the mouth of 
the Colorado were half a dozen kindred but often hostile tribes, of whom 
the Yuma proper are the best known survivors. The mountains to the 
east in Arizona, were held by still other Yuman groups— Yavapai, Wala- 
pai,'Havasupai— of rather different habits from the river tribes. To the 
north and east, the deserts of Nevada and California were occupied by 
sparse groups of Shoshonean lineage. 

The Mohave may have numbered 3000 in aboriginal times. In 19 10 
the government counted 1058. Part of these had been transferred to a 
reservation down-stream at Parker. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 



Bolton, H. E. Spanish Exploration in the Southwest, (pp. 268-280 contain a trans- 
lation of Zarate-Salmeron's Relacion or account of Onate's expedition 
of 1 604.-05.) New York, 1916. 
Coues, Elliot. On the Trail of a Spanish Pioneer. The Diary and Itinerary of 

Francisco Garces, 1 775-1 776. New York, 1900. 
Whipple A W., Ewbank, T., and Turner, W. W. Report of Explorations for 
' a Railway Route near to the 3 5th Parallel of North Latitude from the 
Missouri River to the Pacific Ocean, part I, Itinerary; part 3- 
Report upon the Indian Tribes. Washington, 1855- 
Stratton, R. B. The Captivity of the Oatman Girls. New York 1857. 
Bourke J G. Notes on the Cosmogony and Theogony of the Mojave Indians. 

{Journal of American Folklore, vol. II, pp. 169-189, 1889.) 
Curtis, E. S. The North American Indian, vol II. 

Kroeber, A. L. Preliminary Sketch of the Mohave Indians. {American Anthro- 
pologist, N. S., vol. IV, pp. 276-285, 1902.) . .... 
Yuman Tribes of the Lower Colorado. (University of Call forma Publica- 
tions in American Archaeology and Ethnology, vol. XVI, pp. 475"4»5, 

ChaptersTand LI, "The Mohave," of "The Indians of California," (in press 
as Bulletin of the Bureau of American Ethnolpgy, Washington, D. U). 



Appendix 



401 



Tepecanos 

The Tepecanos were formerly a tribe of some importance, occupying 
considerable territory on the southern slopes of the Sierra Madre range in 
Western Mexico. Here they were found by the early Spanish conquerors 
who refer to them as Chichimec tribes. Their subsequent history is yet to 
be culled from prosy Mexican records. They probably fought valiantly 
against the white invaders but were defeated. As the country became 
settled and European blood introduced, the conservative members of the 
tribe continually retreated, until to-day they occupy but one village, Azquel- 
tan, in the northern part of the state of Jalisco, and a few square miles of 
surrounding territory. Their numbers are reduced to a few hundred and 
many of these are mixed-bloods. 

Physically the Tepecanos are closely akin to the other native tribes of 
western Mexico. The same may be said as regards their language, though 
in this respect the differences are greater. The Tcpecano language is very 
closely related to the Tepehuane, Papago and Pima of northwestern 
Mexico and Arizona and more distantly related to Huichol, Cora, Aztec 
and Ute. 

Little of a connected nature has been written on the Tepecano. The 
following list includes practically all the extant literature : 

Orozco y Berra, Manuel. Geografia de las lenguas y carta etnografica de Mexico; 
Mexico, 1864. pp. 49, 279, 282. 

Lumholtz, Carl. Unknown Mexico, vol. II, p. 123, New York, 1902. 

Hrdlicka, Ales. The Chichimecs and their Ancient Culture. {American Anthro- 
pologist, N. S., vol. Ill, 1903.) 
Physiological and Medical Observations. (Bulletin 34, Bureau of American 
Ethnology, Washington, 1908.) 

Leon, Nicolas. Familias Lingiiisticas de Mexico, Mexico, 1902. 

Thomas, Cyrus, and Swanton, John R. Indian Languages of Mexico and 
Central America. (Bulletin 44, Bureau of American Ethnology, 
Washington, 191 1.) 

Mason, J. Alden. The Tepehuan Indians of Azqueltan. (Proceedings 18th Inter- 
national Congress of Americanists, London, 1912.) 

The Fiesta of the Pinole at Azqueltan. {The Museum Journal, III, Univer- 
sity Museum, Philadelphia, 1912.) 

Tepecano, A Piman Language of Western Mexico. (Annals of the New 
York Academy of Science, vol. XXV, New York, 191 7.) 

Tepecano Prayers. {International Journal of American Linguistics, vol. I II 
1918.) 

Four Mexican Spanish Folk Tales from Azqueltan, Jalisco. {Journal of 

American Folklore, vol. XXV, 19 12.) 
Folk Tales of the Tepecanos. {Journal of American Folklore, vol. XXVII, 

1914.) 



402 



American Indian Life 



Aztecs 

For general account and bibliography see Spinden, H. J. Ancient civ- 
ilizations of Mexico and Central America. (American Museum of Na- 
tural History, Handbook series. No. 3. 19 17.) 



Appendix 



403 



Mayas 
I 

The picture of life in the Old Maya Empire of Central America during 
the sixth century after Christ is reconstructed almost entirely from the 
archaeological evidence. Unlike many of the indigenous cultures of our 
own country which have survived with all their wealth of legend, myth, 
rite and ceremonial, down to the present day, the Old Maya Empire had 
vanished centuries before the Discovery of America. The episode in the 
life of a boy who might have lived in those colorful times must necessarily 
be based upon what we may glean from the monuments, temples and pal- 
aces of the period, helped out here and there by some few ethnological 
facts about the New Maya Empire gathered a millenium later. 

The term "True Man," halach vinic, was that given by the Maya only 
to their highest chiefs, their hereditary rulers, who would seem to have 
lived in a state not unlike feudalism, even discounting the indubitable feud- 
alistic bias with which all the early Spanish chroniclers wrote. The rulers 
together with the priesthood would appear to have been nearly, if not quite 
absolute; succession to the supreme office passed by hereditary descent, 
though probably individual unfitness therefor could and did modify the 
operation of strict primogeniture; finally a system of vassalage, of lesser 
chieftains dependent upon an overlord, certainly obtained. Indeed, such 
are the extent and magnificence of the architectural and monumental re- 
mains of the Maya civilization that in order to have achieved them, it is 
necessary to postulate a highly centralized form of government, admin- 
istered by a small, powerful caste. 

II 

Chichen Itza has had a long and varied history. Founded by the Mayas 
about 500 A. D. in their northern migrations from their original homes in 
Honduras and Guatemala, abandoned for four hundred years and settled 
again about the year 1000, Chichen was now to have two hundred years of 
growth and prosperity. Many of the older buildings still standing, date 
from this period. The famous League of Mayapan, Uxmal, and Chichen 
Itza, was a working alliance which resulted in all the cities of Yucatan mak- 
ing great strides forward in many of the arts. Several of the more famous 
structures at Chichen were erected in this epoch. Our story begins with 
the disruption of this League, when Mayapan brought in Mexican forces 
to prey upon the other cities of the peninsula. Peace gave way to many 



404 



American Indian Life 



years of civil strife. The final destruction of Mayapan, about the middle 
of the fifteenth century, marked the end of the Maya civilization. The 
Spaniards found only the lingering remnants of the former splendor. 

None of the ruined cities of Yucatan is more wonderful than Chichen 
Itza, stately and grand even now when many of its temples have fallen into 
decay, and others are buried in the depths of the forest. The sharp out- 
lines of the Great Pyramid still rise above the level line of the trees of the 
jungle. The fine proportions of the pyramid, and the temple still stand- 
ing on its top, mark it as perhaps the most complete and perfect building 
still extant in the whole Maya area. The substantial walls of the Ball 
Court remain as solid as when they were built. One of the stone rings still 
projects from the wall, a witness to the love of sport of the ancient people. 
The beautiful Temple of the Tigers, standing on the end of one of the 
walls, has been a prey to the devastating forces of man, of beast, and of 
nature. Vines and the roots of trees have gained a foothold on the roof, 
and many of the carved stones have fallen. Iguanas run in all directions 
when the chance visitor approaches. The frescoes of the inner chamber 
are but blurred remains of a former art. 

And the Cenote of Sacrifice, that famous well, so vividly described by 
the early Christian priests, is now but a deserted shrine. Trailing vines, 
ferns, and palms almost cover the precipitous sides. The dark green 
waters are almost concealed by the slime of decaying vegetation. But the 
sight of the silent, sinister pool, surrounded by the unbroken forest, makes 
it easy, even now, to picture the scenes of sacrifice which it has witnessed. 

The country is still peopled by the Mayas but their greatness is a thing 
of the past. The present-day native may well pause to wonder what the 
ruined buildings of his country were really for. He knows only what his 
white masters have told him. "They are the temples of your ancestors 
who have had a past unequaled in the early history of the New World, a 
past stretching back almost to the beginning of the Christian Era." He 
only shakes his head and murmurs in his adopted language, "Quien sabe." 

The Maya civilization formerly embraced the whole peninsula of Yuca- 
tan, Chiapas and Tabasco, states of Mexico, the greater part of Guatemala, 
British Honduras, northern Honduras, and northern Salvador. This 
country is still occupied in general with peoples speaking various dialects of 
the Maya language. 

The Mayas, both linguistically and culturally, are distinct from the 
Zapotccs in Oaxaca and the Nahua-Aztec peoples of Central Mexico. 
There is little doubt, however, that all the cultures of Mexico and Central 
America go back to a common origin. The Maya civilization is older than 
that of the Toltecs in Mexico which, in turn, preceded that of the Aztecs. 



Appendix 



405 



The Toltec culture greatly influenced the late Maya of northern Yucatan 
about 1200 A. D. 

MAYA CHRONOLOGY (CHICHEN ITZA) 

?-200 A. D. Period of migrations. 
200-600 duras flourished. 

Chichen Itza founded. 
520 Chichen Itza abandoned. 

640—960 Itzas at Chakanputun. 

700—960 Chichen rebuilt. League of Mayapan. 

960-1200 Old Empire. Great cities of Guatemala and Hon- 

1200— 1442 Toltec influence, especially at Chichen Itza. 

1442 Fall of Mayapan and end of Maya civilization. 

The historical accounts upon which parts of our story are based are : 

Molina, J. Historia del discubrimiento y conquista de Yucatan, 1896, pp. 47-51 

Herrera, Historia General, 1601-1605. 

Prescott, Chapter III, after Herrera, Torquemada, etc. 

Landa (156), Brasseur de Bourbourg ed. 1864, pp. 344-346. 

Relacion de Valladolid (1579) in Col. de Doc. Ineditos, 1898-1900, vol. XIII, 
p. 25 

Other historical and general references are: 

History : 

Cogolludo, D. L. Historia de Yucatan, 1688. 

Villagutierre, J. Historia de la conquista de la Provincia del Itza, 1701. 
Means, P. A. A history of the Spanish conquest of Yucatan and of the Itzas, in 
Papers of the Peabody Museum, vol. VII, 1917- 

Chronology : 

Morley, S. G. The correlation of Maya and Christian chronology. {American 
Journal of Archaeology, 2nd series, vol. XIV, pp. 193-204.) 
The historical value of the Books of Chilam Balam {American Journal of 
Archaeology, 2nd series, vol. XV, pp. 195-214.) 

Ruins: 

Stephens, J. L. Incidents of travel in Yucatan, 1843. 

Incidents of travel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan, 184 1. 
Maudslay, A. P. Biologia Centrali-Americana Archaeology, 1 889-1902. 
Holmes, W. H. Archaeological Studies among the Ancient Cities of Mexico. 

{Field Columbian Museum, Anthropological Series, vol I, 1 895-1 897.) 
Joyce, T. A. Mexican Archaeology. 1914. 



406 



American Indian Life 



Spinden, H. J. A study of Maya art. (Memoirs of the Peabody Museum, vol. VI, 
I9I3-) 

Gordon, G. B., Thompson, E. H., and Tozzer, A. M. in Memoirs of the Peabody 
Museum. 

Hieroglyphic writing: 

Bowditch, C. P. The numeration, calendar systems and astronomical knowledge of 

the Mayas, 19 10. 

Morley, S. G. An introduction to the study of the Maya hieroglyphs, (Bulletin 57, 
Bureau of American Ethnology, 19 15.) 
The inscriptions at Copan, (Carnegie Institution, 1920.) 

Present population: 

Tozzer, A. M. A comparative study of the Mayas and the Lacandones, 1907. 

Maya language: 

Tozzer, A. M. A Maya grammar with bibliography and appraisement of the works 
noted {Papers of the Peabody Museum, vol. IX, 1921.) 
Relation with surrounding cultures: 
Spinden, H. J. Ancient civilizations of Mexico and Central America. (Handbook 
Series, No. 3, American Museum of Natural History, 1917.) 
The origin and distribution of agriculture in America. (Proceedings of the 
19th International Congress of Americanists, New York, 1917O 
Tozzer, A. M. The domain of the Aztecs, (Holmes Anniversaiy Volume, 1916.) 



Appendix 



407 



The Shellmound People 

The Shellmound people who lived on the shores of San Francisco Bay 
for perhaps three or four thousand years, down to early historic times, are 
regarded as having belonged towards the end to the Costanoan linguistic 
family. These Costanoans inhabited the portion of California extending 
from the Golden Gate south to Soledad, and from the Pacific Ocean east 
to the San Joaquin River. Although totalling more than 7000 square 
miles in extent, this territory was nevertheless largely occupied by moun- 
tains and marshes unsuitable for permanent habitation. The principle set- 
tlements were in consequence confined to the ocean shore, the bay shore, 
and the portion of the San Joaquin valley lying between the marsh and the 
Coast Range foothills. Seven Spanish missions were established in the 
territory during the latter part of the 18th century, and from the old rec- 
ords of these institutions Bancroft has extracted the names of some two 
hundred villages, several of which, however, were outside the Costanoan 
territorial limits. The estimated population may be placed conservatively 
at about 10,000. 

One of the principal dialectic divisions of the Costanoan stock was 
known as the Mutsuns or Mutsunes; and for purposes of the story the Ah- 
washtee tribe, to which Wixi and his villagers of Akalan belonged, has been 
connected with this group. As a matter of fact, the Ahwashtees are def- 
initely reported to have lived on the bay shore, though probably the Mut- 
sunes did not. 

There is next to no available historical data about the Shellmound 
people, as such, and very little archaeological evidence in the shellmounds 
themselves that the Indians continued to inhabit them after the arrival of 
the white man. The principal references are : 

Bancroft, H. H. Native Races of the Pacific States of North America, vol. I, 1874. 

Mason, J. A. The Mutsun Dialect of Costanoan. (University of California Publi- 
cations in American Archaeology and Ethnology, vol. XI, No. 7. 1916.) 

Nelson, N. C. Shellmounds of the San Francisco Bay Region. ( University of Cali- 
fornia Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology, vol. VII, 
No. 4. 1909.) 

Powers, Stfphen. Tribes of California. (Contributions to North American Eth- 
nology, vol. III. 1877.) 

Uhle, Max. The Emeryville Shellmound. (University of California Publications in 
American Archaeology and Ethnology, vol. VIII, No. 1. 1907.) 



408 



American Indian Life 



Yurok 

The Yurok are one of half a dozen tribes in northwestern California 
who exhibit jointly a surprisingly complex way of living. Others of this 
highly cultured group are the Hupa, the Karok, the Tolowa, the Chilula, 
and the Wiyot. One element especially in the tribal life of the region, is 
the notion of aristocracy based upon wealth. This makes them rather 
grasping. Every injury, from slander to rape, demands its money price. 
The Yurok, accordingly, become adept at the art of taking offense. Quar- 
relsomeness is a religion, and wrangling for a price, a fine art. Some 
Yurok are born "stinkers" in money matters. The remainder have that 
quality thrust upon them by the pressure of tribal feeling. They speak an 
Algonkian language, live along the lower part of the Klamath River, sub- 
sist mostly on fish (though they eat a lot of acorns) and are nice folks 
when you know their ways (not until then, however). The principal 
works which describe the Yurok are : 

Powers, Stephen. Tribes of California (U. S. Interior Department, Contributions 
to North American Ethnology, vol. III.) 

Waterman, T. T. Yurok Geography (University of California Publications in 
American Archaeology and Ethnology, vol. XVI.) 
Notes on Yurok Culture (Museum of the American Indian, Heye Founda- 
tion, [in press]). n 
A book which has no title, except a dedication "To the American Indian, by a 

Yurok woman, privately printed at Eureka, California, in 1916. 

Goddard P. E. Life and Culture of the Hupa, University of California Publications 
in American Archaeology and Ethnology, vol. I. (a very fine work, 
describing not the Yurok, but the neighboring Hupa, who follow the 
same mode of life.) 



Appendix 



409 



Nootka 

The Nootka Indians, sometimes known as Aht, are a group of tribes 
occupying the west coast of Vancouver Island, from about Cape Cook south 
to Sooke Inlet, also the extreme northwest point, Cape Flattery, of Wash- 
ington. The Indians of Cape Flattery, generally known as Makah, are 
sometimes considered distinct from the Nootka, but their speech is prac- 
tically identical with that of the Nitinat, the southern group of Vancouver 
Island Nootka. The dividing line between the Nitinat and northern 
Nootka (Nootka proper) is a little south of Cape Beale. It is deter- 
mined by linguistic considerations, the Nitinat dialects and those of the 
northern Nootka being mutually unintelligible groups. The dialectic dif- 
ferences within the groups are comparatively slight. Directly north of the 
northernmost Nootka are the Quatsino, one of the Kwakiutl tribes; south 
of the southernmost island Nitinat are the Sooke, a Coast Salish tribe of 
the Lkungen-Clallam group; while south of the Makah are the Quilleute, a 
Chimakuan tribe. 

The total number of Nootkas in 1906 was about 2500, of which over 
400 belonged to the Makah. The Nootkas in no sense form a political 
unit. They are merely a group of independent tribes, related by lan- 
guage, inter-tribal marriage, and close cultural inter-influences. 

The Nootkas, using the term in its w T idest sense, are fairly remote 
linguistic relatives of the Kwakiutl (including Kwakiutl proper, Bella Bella, 
and Kitamat) , who occupy the northernmost part of the island and adjoin- 
ing parts of the mainland of British Columbia as well. Nootka and 
Kwakiutl are often combined by ethnographers into the "Wakashan" stock. 

The Nootka tribes are culturally quite distinct from both the Kwakiutl 
and the Coast Salish tribes of the southeastern part of Vancouver Island, 
but have been much influenced, particularly in ceremonial respects, by both. 

The chief works on the Nootka are : 

Boas F. The Nootka (Report of British Association for the Advancement of Science, 
Leeds meeting, 1890, pp. 582-604; reprinted, pp. 30-52, in Sixth Report 
on the Northwestern Tribes of Canada.) 
The Nootka ( [Religious Ceremonials] pp. 632-644. of The Social Organiza- 
tion and the Secret Societies of the Kwakiutl Indians, in Report of 
U. S. National Museum, 1895). 
Sagen der Nutka (pp. 98-128 of Indianische Sagen von der Nord-Pacifischen 
Kuste Amerikas, Berlin, 1895). 

Hunt, George (collector). Myths of the Nootka (pp. 888-935 of Boas. F.: Tsim- 
shian Mythology, 31st Annual Report of the Bureau of American Eth- 
nology', 1909-10.) 



410 American Indian Life 

Jewitt, John R. (also Jewett) Adventures and Sufferings of John R. Jewitt, 
only Survivor of the Crew of the Ship Boston during a captivity of 
nearly three years among the Indians of Nootka Sound (Middletown, 
1815; Edinburgh, 1824; often reprinted, see edition of Robert Brown, 
London, 1896) ; also published as The Captive of Nootka, or the 
Adventures of John R. Jewett (Philadelphia, 1841). 
Sapir, E. A Flood Legend of the Nootka Indians of Vancouver Island (Journal of 
American Folklore, 1919, pp. 35 1—355) • 
A Girl's Puberty Ceremony among the Nootka Indians (Transactions of the 

Royal Society of Canada, 3rd series, vol. VII, 1913, PP- 67-80). 
Some Aspects of Nootka Language and Culture (American Anthropologist, 

N. S., vol. XIII, 191 1, PP- 15-28). 
Vancouver Island, Indians of (in Hastings' Encyclopaedia of Religion and 
Ethics; deals with Nootka religion). 
Sproat, G. M. Scenes and Studies of Savage Life (London, 1868). 
Swan, James G. The Indians of Cape Flattery (Smithsonian Contributions to 
Knowledge, vol. XVI, part 8. pp. 1-106, Washington, 1870). 



Appendix 



411 



Chipewyan 

A Northern Athabascan group extending over a considerable area in 
Canada, from the Churchill River to Lake Athabaska and the Great 
Slave Lake. They are sometimes mistaken for the Algonkian Chippewa 
(Ojibwa). Their number is set at nearly 1800. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Hearne, Samuel. Journey from Prince of Wales's Fort in Hudson's Bay, to the 

Northern Ocean. (London, 1795)- 
Petitot, E. Traditions indiennes du Canada nord-ouest. (Alencon, 1887.) 
Russell, Frank. Explorations in the Far North. (Des Moines, 1898.) 
Goddard, P. E. Chipewyan Texts. (Anthropological Papars American Museum of 

Natural History, vol. X, pp. 1-65.) 
Lowie, Robert H. Chipewyan Tales, {ibid., vol. X, pp. 171-200.) 



412 



American Indian Life 



Ten'a 

Anvik is a village on the Anvik River, a tributary of the Yukon River, 
about four hundred miles from its mouth and about one hundred and 
twenty-five miles from the coast. The village is populated by the most 
northern of one of the Athabascan peoples, called Ingalik or Ingilik by the 
Russians, meaning Lousy, according to Jette, an Eskimo name, or Tinneh 
or Ten'a, a native name. The native name for Anvik is Gudrinethchax; it 
means Middle People, a place name, as are the other native names for the 
river villages. 

The only published accounts of the Ten'a are those of the French. mis- 
sionary Jette, stationed at Konkrines and the American missionary Chap- 
man, stationed at Anvik. At the American mission Mr. Reed was edu- 
cated, and his opportunities to observe his own people have been in certain 
particulars limited. In spite of his knowledge of English, and of 
American culture he is, however, unusually unsophisticated and he has been 
an acute and sympathetic observer of the life at Anvik, White and Indian. 
He is therefore what we frequently look for among school-taught Indians 
but rarely find — a qualified interpreter of native culture. As the time 
available for working with him was quite limited, he was asked to present 
his information as if he were telling the story of an Anvik villager from 
birth to death. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Jette, J. On the Medicine-Men of the Ten'a. {Journal of the Royal Anthropo- 
logical Institute, XXXVII [1907], 157-188.) 
On Ten'a Folklore {ibid. XXXVIII [1908], 298-367). 
On the Superstitions of the Ten'a Indians, {Anthropos, VI [191 1], 95-108, 

241-259, 602-615, 699-723). 
Riddles of the Ten'a Indians, {ibid. VIII [1913], 181-201, 630-651.) 
Chapman, John W. Notes on the Tinneh Tribe of Anvik, Alaska. (Congres 
International des Americanistes, 15th Session, II, 7-38. Quebec, 1907- ) 
Athabascan Traditions from the Lower Yukon. {Journal of American Folklore, 
XVI [1903], 180-5.) 
Ten'a Texts and Tales. (Pub. American Ethnological Society, VI, Leyden, 
1914.) 



Appendix 



413 



Eskimos 

The Eskimos occupy the whole Arctic coast from Behring Strait to Lab- 
rador and Greenland. They have also a few isolated villages on the ex- 
treme eastern point of Siberia. Notwithstanding a general uniformity of 
cultural life, there are marked differences between the Eskimo of the region 
west of the Mackenzie River and the eastern group. The Eskimo of 
Greenland are considerably modified by European contact. The group to 
which the tale refers are the Eskimo of Baffin Land, the large island ex- 
tending from Hudson Strait northward and forming the west coast of 
Davis Strait and Baffin Bay, more particularly of the eastern shore of the 
island. The total number of individuals living in this area does not 
exceed 400. 

Individuals belonging to these villages make extensive travels and come 
into contact with the natives of the northern coast of Hudson Bay and of 
the mainland northwest of Hudson Bay. Only Eskimo tribes are known 
to them. 

The principal descriptions of these tribes are found in the following 
publications : 

Boas, Franz. The Central Eskimo (6th Annual Report of the Bureau of Eth- 
nology, Washington, 1888). 
The Eskimo of Baffin Land and Hudson Bay (Bulletin, vol. XX, American 
Museum of Natural History, New York, 1901, 1907). 
Other important publications may be found in the bibliographies attached 
to these volumes. The most important recent publication on the Eskimo 
of Greenland is : 

Thalbitzer, William. The Ammassalik Eskimo ; Meddelelser om Gronland, vol. 
XXXIX, Copenhagen, 1914. 



ILLUSTRATOR'S NOTES 



Takes-the-pipe, a Crow Warrior 

The center, a pair of Crazy-Dog sashes. Also the figures connected 
with the warrior's visions— the moon, the buffalo, the bear. The stick used 
by the Hammer Stick Society; that used in counting "coup"; that planted 
in the ground by the aspirant for the rank of chief, as he leads in fight. 
At top, the moths the boy rubbed on his chest; Takes-the-pipe's moccasins; 
at bottom his captured horses. At sides, a skin ornament worn by Crow 
medicine men. 

Smoking-star, a Blackfoot Shaman 

A Blackfoot medicine man's tepee, by the shore of a lake, in the foothills. 
The border, typical beadwork pattern. At bottom, a medicine pipe, a 
medicine bundle, wand used by medicine man, and beavers. 

Little-wolf Joins the Medicine Lodge 

Center, a medicine lodge, roofed with sheets of birch-bark; the walls are 
upright sticks. At sides, otter-skin medicine bags. Below, a ceremonial 
drum of wood covered with stretched buckskin. A medicine pipe. The 
shells used in "shooting medicine," with their bead necklaces. At top, 
gourd medicine rattles. The patterns are from typical beadwork and the 
dyed mats used in lodges. 

Thunder-cloud, a Winnebago Shaman, Relates and Prays 

Center, the Beings invoked in the prayers, appearing in the smoke from 
a medicine pipe. Ornament, typical beadwork. 

415 



416 American Indian Life 

How Meskwaki Children Should Be Brought Up 

Central background, typical beadwork. Center, a warrior's neck orna- 
ment with bear claws ; woman's necklace of bone and beads; crossed below, 
a war club and the stick used in the ball game. At sides, the beaded 
cylinders are those through which a woman's hair passes; the long straps 
hang as ornaments. Typical moccasins. 

In Montagnais Country 

An Indian calling moose with a birch-bark horn. Across top a cere- 
monial carrying-strap. Snowshoes. At sides, knives, spearhead fish- 
hook. At bottom, birch-bark baskets, wooden spoons, ceremonial pipe. 
The patterns, typical beadwork. 

Hanging-flower, the Iroquois 

Four masks used by the Society of False Faces. A turtle-shell medicine 
rattle. Tomahawks and war clubs. A tall basket, and the wooden pestle 
used by the women for making corn meal. 

The Thunder Power of Rumbling-wings 

Rumbling-wings invoking the Thunder Bird. At bottom, the little 
mask Rumbling-wings wears. War clubs. 

Tokulki of Tulsa 

At top sides, beaded pouches. Sides, cloth with beaded ornament. At 
bottom a ceremonial drum, of earthenware with buckskin stretched over 
it TaU-g m ticks; balls; spoons; the head ornament of white deer hairs 
and f athers worn by the ball players. Center, reference to the myth that 
Ihe eclipse of the sun is caused by a giant toad. At sides of center, gourd 
medicine rattles and a carved stone pipe. 

Slender-maiden of the Apache 

Upper center, the mask with its fan-like ornament, worn in the dance 
ASffi shirt; below it the pendant ornament wc«attow» 
An Apache basket. At either side of shirt .ornament^ **J u£ 
leather. The other ornaments, typical beadwork. The oak leal 
indicate the Apache use of acorns. 



Appendix 



417 



When John the Jeweler was Sick 

The center is a part of one of the Navaho sand paintings made for 
curing ceremonial. The figures are supernaturals, the central objects rep- 
resent growing corn; the bent rectangular figure, the rainbow. In the 
four corners are dance masks used in the same ceremony, and at the bottom 
is the rug, with the various ceremonial objects laid upon it, which is a 
feature of the ceremony. 

Waiyautitsa of Zuni, New Mexico 

The figure is a conventionalization showing how the girls let the bang 
fall over the face in the dance; the painted flat board headdress worn by 
them in the harvest dance, and the tablet they carry in each hand. The 
jar, out of which the figure grows, is a typical Zuni water jar. The bowl 
at top is a sacred meal bowl. The side borders are from altar paintings, 
showing animal spirits. Prayer sticks. 

Zuni Pictures 

Background and borders, a paraphrase of the ceremonial blanket, of 
Hopi weave. At bottom, the box with notched stick on top, used in the 
sword-swallowing ceremony. Over it, the war-god image. The sticks 
with turkey feathers are the "swords" that are swallowed. Zuni masks. 

Havasupai Days 

View in Cataract Canon. Bow and skin quivers. Cooking bowls of 
earthenware. Horn ladles. A carrying-basket. 

Earth-tongue, a Mohave 

View of the Needles, on Colorado River. Above, Spiders, Scorpion, 
Ant, Serpent. The two Ravens. Below, bow, arrows, war clubs, pottery 
utensils. 

The Chief Singer of the Tepecano 

The landscape pictures the belief in the omnipresence of the sacred ser- 
pent in nature's manifestations: the storm cloud, rain, springs, rivers, 
wind. The hawk is a sacred bird. The ornament is typical of a rich 
variety of patterns; those used here are largely rain or water symbols. 
Ears of corn, and under the shield, the conventional representation of 
the steel for striking fire. 



1 



4i 8 American Indian Life 

The Understudy of Tezcatlipoca 

Background, a reconstitution of the vanished temple in Mexico City; 
the data for this are very meagre. At top, the great stone Aztec calendar. 
At sides, the serpent motif. Below, the carving or bowlder, still existing, 
which records the taking of Cuernavaca. 

How Holon Chan Became the True Man of His People 

From the existing remains of temples, and from various details of the 
same period, a reconstitution has here been made of the color and form 
that may have characterized the doorway in which Holon Chan stood at 
sunset. His figure is arrived at in somewhat the same way: from the 
author's description and from the highly complicated and conventional- 
ized detail of the sculptures. 



The Toltec Architect of Chichen Itza 

Center, the stone ring through which, in the ball game, the ball was. 
thrown. Background, a detail from the great colored frieze upon the 
interior walls of one of the temples. Sides, stone columns, representing 
the Plumed Serpent, at either side of the doorway of the Ball Court 
Temple. Above, two conventional plumed serpents. 



Wixi of the Shellmound People 

The landscape is the Ellis Island Mound in San Francisco Bay. Below, 
shell pendants, necklaces, fishhooks, beads. 

All Is Trouble Along the Klamath 

A view of the Klamath. Typical patterns. 



Sayach'apis, a Nootka Trader 

At sides, the human figures are wooden house posts. At top, two 
masks; one at left represents a mythical bird; one at right, the wolf mask. 
Center, a Nootka drum, painted with symbols of Thunder Bird, Plumed 
Serpent and Whale. The figures in background, conventionalized whales. 
At bottom, a mask representing a cuttlefish. Behind it, Sayach'apis 
paddling his canoe. At sides, painted canoe-paddles and clubs used to kill 
seals. 



Appendix 



419 



Cries-for-salmon, a Ten'a Woman 

At top, two dance masks. At bottom wooden bowls. Center, a cere- 
monial figure representing Salmon. A woman's bag, made of fish skin, 
embroidered and painted. Bone awls. Two little ornaments at central 
sides are bobbins. 



An Eskimo Winter 

The arctic hare, the ptarmigan, the seal. Below, caribou, feeding. 
Above them a kayak. In borders, fish and seal spears, bows and arrows, 
skinning knives. 



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